The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (58 page)

The Grumman Widgin landed in the harbours, and the people crowded the beaches or put out towards the plane in boats as if with the intention of sinking it. The door of the plane opened and there I was, loudspeaker in hand. By the time I left, they were always loudly cheering. It happened in outport after outport.

I wondered if it was the manner of my arrival and departure that won them over; if they believed that I had singlehandedly brought this plane, the one and only such device in all the world, into existence.

I did not speak to them about Canada. What could they know about Canada, these people who had never seen St. John’s? For
these people, there would be no dilemma. To them, voting for Confederation would be no great sacrifice.

Their homes were worlds unto themselves. The fishermen were not nationalists of any sort, defined themselves as neither Newfoundlanders nor colonials, but as residents of chthonic origin, sprung from the earth of whatever little island or cove they had grown up in. Confederation would not make them think of themselves as Canadians. All they knew or would ever know of Canada was that it was some nebulous place from which, somehow because of me, money trickled in to them. They would vote for Confederation to get the mother’s allowance and would live after Confederation exactly as they had before, only richer by about twenty dollars per month.

That I was doing what was best for them I was able to satisfy myself just by looking at the way they lived. They had starved through a depression that had ended when the war began. Now, three years since the war had ended, they were terrified that another decade like the thirties was on its way.

A politician should believe that the welfare of his people depends on his success. Everything I do for me I do for them. And so the day may arrive when to tell the difference between selfishness and selflessness becomes impossible.

That day came for me. It may have come before Confederation. It may not have come until decades later. I don’t know. It is like noticing that the colour of the sea has changed and trying to remember when it happened.

It seemed to me that unless I did something that historians thought was worth recording, it would be as if I had never lived, that all the histories in the world together formed one book, not to warrant inclusion in which was to have wasted one’s life. It terrified me that if it were possible to extrapolate the judge’s book past 1895 to the present, I would not be in it. And I was forty-eight years old.

On referendum night, we crowded round a radio at Confederation headquarters, listening as the returns came in. Responsible government took an early lead, but we had expected that, as we knew the St. John’s polls would be the first to report. Throughout the night, the gap between independence and Confederation gradually narrowed. But not quite enough.

No option had received a majority of votes, so there would have to be another referendum. Commission of Government, which had finished a distant last, was dropped from the ballot. The second referendum was set for July 22. Six weeks.

Fielding’s Condensed
      
History of Newfoundland

Chapter Twenty-Eight:

BOND ON BOYLE

Sir Cavendish is governor of Newfoundland from 1901–1904, throughout which time and for years afterwards he labours to perfect his ode — it must be said, to the neglect of his duties as governor.

He is often absent from official functions, which forces his wife to say that he is sick, though no one believes her, for it is common knowledge that he is upstairs in his writing room, the window of which looks out upon the rear grounds of Government House.

People walking on Circular Road on their way to Government House receptions often see him sitting side-on to the window, looking out, lost in brooding contemplation.

To a colleague who tells him in a letter “I fear we have another Pickmore on our hands,” Prime Minister Sir Robert Bond warns him not to be taken in by “the apparently inexhaustible inventiveness of Lady Boyle when it comes to devising ailments for that versifying derelict Sir Cavendish. Rest easy, my friend; the man is not sick, or no more so, shall I say, than any man who spends his days
and nights composing poetry, which if that be illness he is for embalming long past due.”

In such a way are poets talked about behind their backs; in the knowledge that such things are being said of them must they persist, as I have done, my ears burning.

A Man You Never Knew

I
COULD NOT, THEY
would not let me, go outside without them. They were my bodyguards, a former paratrooper and an ex-wrestler who were hired by others over my objections to protect me. I carried with me at all times a fully loaded, unregistered revolver. I was getting anonymous death threats every day, by phone, by mail, at the
Confederate
, at my home, the windows of which were boarded up. On going outside in the morning, I often found the house plastered with posters that said Traitor, Judas. Finally, my supporters convinced me that my wife and children and I should move from one safe house to another each night. We were bundled off in the van of a confederate dry-cleaner, which appeared promptly at six each evening to take us to yet another house.

When I was campaigning in St. John’s, I went every Sunday night to my parents’ house on the Brow for dinner. My bodyguards remained outside on the deck that faced the road, conspicuous to any anti-confederates who might recognize my car. My parents’ house was not a target in my absence because my mother
was known to be Pentecostal, and the Pentecostal and Catholic churches had come out against Confederation, ostensibly because they feared it would mean the end of the separate school system. My father was known to be an anti-confederate, as well, though no one, him and me included, could have said on what grounds, except that it was by now a matter of principle to him to be against anything that I was for. It was the same with the confederates, who did not harass my parents either.

One Sunday halfway through the second referendum campaign, my mother seemed agitated when she met me at the door. She had not said when I called that anyone would be joining us for dinner, she had said only that my father would not be, but there was a car I did not recognize outside.

“Hello, Joe,” she said, her voice unnaturally loud, as if to alert me to the presence in the house of strangers, or to alert them to my presence. “There’s someone here,” she said, looking at me meaningfully, as if to say I should prepare myself, “who would very much like to see you.”

She led me into the front room, where a man was sitting in the armchair that faced the door, his legs crossed, his hat on his knees. I would not have recognized him so quickly if not for his still bloodshot left eye. Now only the lower half was bloodshot, as though his eye were floating half-submerged in blood. The lenses of the glasses he was wearing were so thick I guessed he must be nearly blind.

“Mr. Hines says he knows you from New York,” my mother said nervously. Hines did not get up, nor did I step forward to shake his hand.

“It’s been a long time, Mr. Hines,” I said.

“No time at all in the eternal scheme of things,” said Hines.

“Mr. Hines is — ” My mother paused. “Mr. Hines is here for the referendum, Joe.”

“I am a Newfoundlander,” Hines said, looking at me, “and unto Newfoundland I have returned.” I sat down in the chair
across from his. My mother sat on the edge of the sofa between us, inclined slightly towards Hines but looking at me.

“I’ll pour you some tea, Joe,” she said. There was a tea service and a plate of biscuits on the table.

“Are you still publishing the
Backhomer
?” I said. He smiled as if to say he was sure I knew he was, which I did.

“I’m here to see what this Confederation fuss is all about,” said Hines. “I hadn’t realized until the first referendum that so many of our flock had gone astray. I must say, when I knew you in New York, you didn’t strike me as having much leadership potential. But you were young then. Not the man you are today, I’m sure.”

I guessed he was in his late sixties. The whole left side of his face was downturned from the stroke, as if, despite the partial clearing of his eye, its effects were worsening with age. Or perhaps he had had another stroke.

“None of us is what we used to be,” I said.

“My name has not always been Hines,” he said. “Did I tell you that?”

I shook my head.

“I changed it when
I
changed, though I have never tried to hide my past. I depict myself in my sermons as an object-lesson to my flock. I once was lost but now am found. You can be too, Joe Smallwood.”

“I’ve been warning Newfoundlanders against excess of pride,” I said.

Hines nodded. “The devil will often use God’s words against Him.”

“I’m sure Joe is only doing what he thinks is right,” my mother said.

“And you, my good woman,” Hines said, “you are saying only what you think is true. I wish I could say the same thing for your son. Faith before all, Mrs. Smallwood. Faith before family, if need be.”

My mother hung her head.

“I would not trust this man,” Hines continued, “as far as I could throw him. But then, even at my age, I believe that I could throw him quite a distance.”

Before my mother could respond, Hines uncrossed his legs and struggled to his feet. My mother got up, too, crimson-faced, her hands clasped in front of her. She was on the verge of tears. The recent death of Miss Garrigus had left her shaken.

“It’s not enough that you and Miss Garrigus betrayed my mother’s confidence,” I said. “Now you have to stand here pretending you’re the Pentecostal Church — ”

“What do you mean, Joe, betrayed my confidence?” my mother said.

“Miss Garrigus told him about the book and Mr. Mercer” — Hines looked startled, discomposed, which I took as confirmation that I was right — “and when I went to his church in New York — ”

“But no one knows about it, Joe,” my mother said. “How could Mr. Hines — How did you — Oh, my God. What, what’s happened?” She looked horror-struck at me as if she suspected the devil to be involved. “I never told anyone about the book and poor Mr. Mercer, Joe,” she said, her eyes wide with fright. “Not a single soul.” I looked at her, was about to accuse her of lying when I saw by her anguished perplexity that she could not be.

Then Hines did not know about the book and Mr. Mercer. Unless he had somehow found out about it from some other member of the family. I wondered if, during his “days of debauchery” in St. John’s, he had known my father. But my father had been passed out drunk, in bed asleep, the night my mother threw the book. And I was the only one who had looked out the window above the city-facing deck.

I looked at Hines. He was flustered, eager to leave, regretting he had come. I stepped towards him.

“You said — You said in your sermon that a book and a man I never met had played a large part in my life. What book and what man did you mean?”

“I meant — I meant this Mr. Mercer whom you just mentioned,” Hines said. “As I once told you, God makes me privy to knowledge that he withholds from others.”

“Then tell us what happened to Mr. Mercer,” I said. “Go on,” I said, when he looked away from me. “Tell us. Tell us what book I’m talking about.” Hines said nothing, edged his way towards the door, but I moved with him.

“You have a secret of your own, don’t you?” I said. Hines blanched. “You know about the
Morning Post
letter and about the judge’s book.”

Hines smiled weakly. He stepped around me, walked across the room, headed for the door, then stopped to look back at me. “You had your chance years ago,” he said, his voice quavering. “God offered you salvation, Joe Smallwood, and you refused it.” He put on his hat, his hands shaking, opened the door and walked out.

“You’ve known all along about the book and Mr. Mercer?” my mother said, her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I saw you,” I said, determined not to break down with her, though a gust of grief rose in my throat. “That night. I heard you going down the stairs. I looked out the window and I saw you throw the book. I heard the avalanche.” I decided not to tell her that I had retrieved the book.