Season of Storm (37 page)

Thirty-three

By mid-November Smith was being driven crazy by her own song. Wherever she turned, whatever she did, 'Wake Me Up to Say Goodbye' would sooner or later assail her ears. It was being played on every pop music station in Vancouver, perhaps every one in Canada.

It kept Johnny constantly in her mind. She couldn't divorce the song from her memories of Johnny, and her memories of Johnny were going to drive her mad.

In late November there was something else that kept him in the forefront of her mind: the Cartier Commission brought down its preliminary report, and it recommended against the Chopa. "In the light of various background and policy papers it had considered, as well as the 1974 Pierce Commission paper on forest tenure...in light of the fact that the new Charter of Rights had not seen fit to entrench aboriginal rights in such matters...the economic situation and the practical results...but also considering the very real concerns of the aboriginal people who enjoyed the use of the land...the commission recommended that the timber rights granted to St. John Forest Products on the land bounded by Salmontail Lake, Hackle Ridge, Feather Mountain and Cat Bite River, including Cat Bite Valley, be honoured. But it further recommended that care be taken to ensure 'that the damage inflicted on the environment be no more than is held to be necessary' and, as far as possible ensure 'the least damage to the wildlife habitat consistent with the cutting of the timber.'

The full report would not be published until after Christmas, but everyone knew all it was necessary to know. Only fools would imagine that the concern for native claims and wildlife preservation was anything more than lip service.

Smith was in a fury over it. A helpless fury. She could fire off a letter to the editor, which she did; she could buttonhole her friends at parties and over lunch and denounce the system, which she did; she could write to Victoria and Ottawa. She did that, too. What she could not do was convince herself that citizens had any voice in the running of the country.

Her friends listened to her, of course. They all knew she was married to Johnny Winterhawk, who was a Chopa, and they all suspected it had gone wrong. Nobody knew how or why. To some, like Valerie and Lew and Mel, who knew how she was suffering from what they thought of as 'the breakup', this fury on his behalf came as no surprise. They listened because they knew she needed to vent her rage. Others, who knew nothing except the bare facts, were surprised at this revolutionary zeal toward her estranged husband's cause and listened because they hoped to find some clue to the still fascinating mystery of Shulamith St. John and Johnny Winterhawk.

What she wanted to be doing, of course, was not blowing off steam to everyone who would listen, but comforting Johnny. She knew that comfort was impossible, yet she had learned from Johnny that sharing pain meant halving it, and she wanted to share the ugliness of the commission decision with him.

Well, at least there could be no immediate cutting, she knew: lumbering operations had been packed up for the winter. She would have time to talk to Jake Conrad, try to convince him. When the deal had gone through she had taken shares in the new Concord Corporation rather than selling out. She could make a nuisance of herself if she had to.

Perhaps if she could tell Johnny that there was still hope it might be a way of sharing the pain. She could do that without asking for anything. She could just phone and say "I've still got some influence...."

On the third day after the decision was released Smith picked up the phone and called his office.

"I'm sorry,'' said the receptionist, "Mr. Winterhawk isn't in town. He's still over in Amsterdam. But he should be back next week. Would you like to leave a message?"

"No," said Smith. She hung up. She had been saved from her own stupidity once. She must be careful not to tempt fate again.

***

"All right," said Mel, rubbing his hands and smiling. "We've got a hit, and we've got a star. I got nibbles—bites, in fact—from two American companies this week, and one of them is CBS. They are very excited about Cimarron and literally bowled over to know that we are only a few numbers short for an album and even have half of it laid down already."

"Have
we got half of it laid down?" asked Smith in surprise.
 

"We will have by Christmas. We'll work flat out after this. They were suggesting Cimarron might do a promotional tour of the States in the spring." He stopped and looked around at their three amazed, incredulous faces. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what I am trying to tell you is—our ship has come in."

"Holy fuck. Holy fuck!" Cimarron was swearing with a kind of religious awe, something Smith had long ago got used to. She herself swore when she was angry, but Cimarron swore to express any emotion, from excitement through minor annoyance. Smith had once threatened to write a song called "I Love You, Goddammit" for her, but the others had convinced her it would sound too Country for Cimarron's image.

When she had sat a moment taking it in, Smith jumped up and ran to embrace Cimarron. "Congratulations," she said. "You're going to make us all rich. Isn't she, everybody?"

"You're rich already." Cimarron protested stupidly, tears starting in her glistening dark eyes. She hugged Smith tightly and smiled at them all through her tears. "Oh, shit!" she choked on a half giggle, half sob. "What if I can't take it?  What if I'm just not up to it?"

"Then just remember," Mel said easily now, "'Lizzie—you bin ast.'"

***

On an evening at the end of November Smith sat sprawled in her favourite armchair—a piece of furniture she had begged from her father when she'd moved—her feet over one arm, a glass of wine balanced on her stomach, gazing out the broad wall of windows to the lights of the ships moored out on the bay. The sun had disappeared into the sea, even the faint red glow on the water was gone. High clouds scudded over moon and stars.

She was sitting in the warm glow of a single lamp, listening to a tape of Lew playing his latest composition. Actually, he had told her, it was not new—it was an old piece that he had resurrected and revamped in the hope that it might inspire her. And while it was certainly not Lew at his most inspired, there was something about the music that she liked.

What it needed was an upbeat lyric that demanded no more of the listener than did the music. "You won't be happy till we come up with something with boop-boop-a-doo in it, will you?" she had laughed to Mel, who wanted nothing more than to cut an album of Cimarron with all original songs, composed only by Cimarron or by Lew and Smith.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mel had said during their last conference, "the music business is very fragmented these days. Nobody knows what is going to be selling next week, let alone next year. I want Cimarron to cover as broad a base as possible—within her musical persona, of course. That means somebody has got to move out of Moody City here and cough up a pretty little song that holds out some hope for the human heart...."

That was when Smith had said, "You won't be happy till we come up with something with boop-boop-a-doo in it."

"Boop-boop-a-doo," she sang now. "Where are you you you?"

Johnny was on her mind tonight—he was on her mind often when she sat here alone.

She stood and moved to the glass door, gazing out at the moon. The view from her balcony was broad and open over the whole bay. She could see the lights of Grouse Mountain off to the right, Point Grey to her left. Not really like the view from Johnny's house, but still it took her back there. Was Johnny looking at the same moon? It felt like that, she could feel the moon as a connection between them, but Johnny was in Amsterdam and in Amsterdam it was morning already.

"Where are you you you?" Smith sang again.

The buzzer sounded from downstairs and Smith glanced at her watch. Pausing to turn down the volume, she crossed to the intercom. Not that late; it could be anybody. Valerie and Rolly had said they might drop in for a drink after some show they were going to nearby.

"Valerie?" she pushed the button for Talk, and then Listen.

"Shulamith?" said the voice she hadn't heard for too long. Smith gasped, took a slug of wine and felt her heart set up a pounding that would deafen her.

"Johnny. What is it? What do you want?" she demanded hoarsely, then laughed helplessly, moved her finger onto the Talk button and asked again.

"Just you," said Johnny's deep voice. "To see you." More than anything in the world at that moment she wished she had the power to say no. But her finger had already moved over to the button marked Door.

She opened her the apartment door a little, then moved into the room and sat down on the piano bench, staring at the doorway. By the time his tap sounded she was stiff, trapped between hope and fear. "Come in," she called, when she could make her mouth move, and then he was there, as dark and beloved as ever. He stared across the room at her, but she could not read the message in his eyes.

"How did you find me?" she asked in a voice that seemed rusty with disuse.

"Your father," said Johnny. "I called and he gave me your address."

"When did you get back?"

"An hour ago." He closed the door and leaned on it wearily. "I've just come from the airport."

Suddenly she understood. It was his first time home since the Cartier recommendations, and after all this time, he had come to her for comfort.

Thirty-four

"Beautiful place you found yourself," he said, flicking a glance around the softly-lighted room as though grateful that a safe topic presented itself.

"Thanks, yeah, I really like it. Nothing like as beautiful as....How are you, Johnny?" she asked, still in the same level voice, still sitting there with the piano between them like a shield.

Amusement glimmered for a moment behind his eyes. "Did you know that damned song of yours is even playing on the inflight music channel?"

She laughed over the lump in her throat. "Is it? Oh, well, it's all money in the till. We're making a deal with CBS now."

"You're doing well, then." He moved away from the door towards her and belatedly she waved him to sit. "Congratulations."

"Thank you. You realize I have you to thank for it?"

He sank back in the chair and shot her a look. "Do you? Why?"

"Isn't it obvious? What you did just—shook me up so much, derailed me, I think, that I had to look at my life from a completely different angle. And once I'd done that—" Not the time to tell him how his reaction to her first attempts at poetry had boosted her confidence in her writing. "If you hadn't kidnapped me I might never have got that other view."

He moved his head. "You don't think it was waiting to happen?"

Nor the time to describe how love had powered through her life, a river in flood, changing the landscape, tearing down dams, bringing green life to barren fields—and the only price a heart so broken she couldn't even find the pieces.

"How's the hotel going?" she asked instead. She wondered suddenly, with a sinking heart, if she was wrong, if he had come to discuss divorce proceedings.

"We've had a bit of a problem with the contractors—we've had to develop some new methods and—" He broke off, as though surprised to hear himself talking. "Old dogs don't like new tricks," he finished briefly.

Silence fell.

Smith jumped up guiltily. "What can I get you to drink, Johnny?"

He was rubbing his head as though his scalp were too tight. "Got any scotch?" he asked gratefully. "My body thinks it's three in the morning."

She moved into the kitchen, grateful for the excuse to turn on lights, chatting with him over the eating bar while she laid a tray with snacks, scotch, ice and glasses. After a few minutes she heard the sounds of Lew's music as the volume went up.

"What's this?" called Johnny. "The same tune keeps repeating."

Smith picked up the tray and returned to the living room.

"Lew's latest. I have to write some lyrics for it," she told him. "It's not coming easy." She set the tray down beside him and he lifted the decanter as Lew's music finished and started again.