The Other Side of the Bridge (27 page)

Ian paused, the fries halfway to his mouth. He put them down again and looked at them. It was as if she had opened a door in her head and showed him everything that was going on in there. The picture she was working on.

She said, “Ian?” Her voice was puzzled. She released her hold on his hand and he withdrew it carefully. He began aligning the fries in a neat little row on the side of the plate, prodding them this way and that until they were level along the bottom. He pushed one end of the row of fries together so that they made a fan shape.

After a while he heard her get up from the table. He saw the movement at the periphery of his vision. She slid out of the booth and he heard her footsteps receding down the aisle. He got to his feet and dug a fistful of coins out of his pocket and put them down beside the plates—hers still untouched—and followed her out. As he passed their booth, Fats and Ron Atkinson whistled slowly and Ron said, “Hey, lover-boy. What’ve you done now?”

He followed Cathy down the street at a distance. He didn’t want to catch up with her while there were still people about. When she turned down the road she lived on, he caught up with her. She tried to walk away but he got in front of her, saying, “Wait, Cath, wait.” She stepped this way and that, trying to get around him, and then gave up and just stood there, her arms at her sides. He took her hand and led her over to the side of the road. A tree had come down in a storm earlier in the year and the trunk was still lying there, waiting to be cut up; he sat on it and gently pulled her down beside him. He told her he wasn’t ready to make decisions about his future yet. He said maybe he was very immature or something, but he really wasn’t ready for that. So he thought it would be best if they broke it off. She was crying. She asked if it was something she’d done, something she’d said, and he said no, it wasn’t her at all, it was him. She said she’d try to be different, she loved him so much that she’d be anything he wanted, and he shook his head, appalled. She said she didn’t want to tie him down but couldn’t they just go on as they were; and he said no, he was sorry. He was really sorry.

It was a while before she pulled herself together, but finally she did. She took a deep breath and wiped her face with her fingers, looking straight in front of her, chin raised. Then she stood up. Ian stood up too, and asked if she wanted him to walk the rest of the way home with her. She said no, so he stayed where he was and watched her walk away.

Once when he was a small child a Sunday school teacher had taught a lesson on being good. She’d said it was sometimes difficult to know the right thing to do; it could be hard to tell good from bad, right from wrong. But, she had added, speaking in the hushed but cheerful voice that Sunday school teachers always seemed to use, there was one foolproof way to tell. All you had to do was ask yourself what Jesus would have done. You worked out what Jesus would do in any situation and then you did it, and it was sure to be right.

He’d forgotten the lesson the minute the class was over, but now it came back to him. He saw that for the past three years he had been working on a variation of that idea: in any tricky personal situation he had asked himself what his mother would have done, and then he had done the opposite. It seemed to him that she was the perfect anti–role model: she hadn’t cared how much she hurt the people who loved and depended on her; she had put her own desires above those of everyone else; she had lied and pretended and deceived. He had made it part of his own personal code of behavior never to behave as she had done, and yet when it came to it, he had treated Cathy much the same. He hadn’t exactly cheated on her, unless you counted loving Laura from afar, but he had allowed her to think he loved her when he didn’t, which amounted to the same thing.

It scared him that he’d ended up behaving like his mother. It made him wonder if at some deep, unalterable level, he resembled her.

He went home. He had left his bike at Cathy’s; he’d have to pick it up sometime when she wasn’t around. When he got in, there was a note from his father on the kitchen table with the name
Lefebvre
and a phone number—he always left a note in case of emergencies—and the words
yet another
scribbled at the bottom, by which he meant another baby. He seemed to be delivering babies every other night at the moment; it was practically an epidemic.

Ian went down to the dock. It was very peaceful there. It wasn’t dark yet and the low clouds gave the lake a metallic sheen. He flipped the canoe over, slid it into the water, and climbed in.

He paddled down the shore, keeping close in, the canoe sliding silently through the water. There was a cold mist stealing across the lake ahead of the night. Ian laid his paddle across the canoe and did up his jacket. The canoe was drifting toward the old beaver lodge at the entrance to Low Down Bay. It had been abandoned for a number of years but the beavers had returned the previous fall and the stark white branches of the birches they’d brought down were sticking up out of the water like bones. He sat motionless for a while, wondering if he’d catch sight of a beaver, but there was no sign of them. Spring wasn’t their busy time—they did most of their building in the fall. The females would be having their young about now, curled up safe and dry in the depths of the lodge.

He turned the canoe and paddled out around the point. He thought about the year to come, saw himself walking down a city street, cars roaring past, the stink of exhaust fumes, people jostling against him. No silence, anywhere. He thought about Arthur’s brother waving his arm and saying, “Out of Struan! Out of the North! Out of the goddamned
bush
!” On one level he agreed with him completely. On another level he wasn’t sure he would survive.

He rounded the point that formed the eastern shore of Hopeless Inlet, and sure enough, the
Queen Mary
was there, Pete hunched over his fishing line like always. Ian came up slowly, careful not to disturb the water.

“How’s it going?” he said quietly.

“So-so,” Pete said.

There were half a dozen trout in the bottom of the boat. “Doesn’t look too bad,” Ian said, nodding at them.

“Chickenshit, man.”

Ian couldn’t assess his tone. He didn’t know if he was welcome or not. Until a week ago he wouldn’t have given the matter a thought: he’d have tied the canoe to the
Queen Mary
and climbed in. His rod was still where he’d left it, sticking out over the stern. Was that a good sign? Maybe Pete hadn’t even noticed it.

“You reckon he’s still down there, eh?” Ian said.

“Yup.”

“Still think he’s a muskie?”

“Yup.”

“You actually seen him?”

“Nope.”

Ian slid the canoe back and forth with his paddle. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. An invitation? Pete to say, “Aren’t you gonna fish?” Whatever it was, it didn’t come.

“Good luck,” he said finally.

Pete looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks.”

His father was in the kitchen when he got home, eating a hunk of cheese straight from the fridge.

“Hi,” Ian said, grateful that he was back. “How did it go?”

“A bouncing baby boy.”

“Are the proud parents happy?”

“Not specially. They’ve got nine already.”

“Good grief.”

The fridge was wide open. The Irish stew Mrs. Tuttle had left for them was on a shelf beside a very large jar containing one dill pickle.

“We could heat that up,” Ian said, nodding at the stew. She made a double dose of it every Friday to see them through the weekend. Sometimes she called it something else—a
casserole,
that was her new word for it—but it was always the same stew.

“We could,” his father agreed. “Are you that hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither. Have some cheese.” His father cut another hunk of cheese and handed it to him, then studied him for a moment. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah. Well, sort of. I broke up with Cathy.”

“Oh. That’s…. too bad.” He didn’t say, “Again?” which was nice of him. He was good about things like that.

“Yeah. It wasn’t…. going anywhere. We don’t have enough in common.”

His father nodded. The absence of Ian’s mother drifted into the room.

“Plus there’s something wrong with Pete,” Ian said quickly. “Not wrong, exactly. Strange. I don’t know what it is.”

His father said, “This is a tough time for him, you know. It’s always difficult having a foot in both camps, but when there’s trouble between the camps it’s really hard.”

“I guess.” Though it seemed to him that if you’d been friends for the whole of your life you were entitled not to be seen as part of a camp. He wished he and Pete could talk about it, properly, get it out in the open, but that would never happen. Their relationship was based on things not said, and the more important something was, the less likely they were to discuss it.

“What does his grandfather think about it all? Jim Lightfoot being arrested and everything?” Ian knew his father had a lot of respect for the old man, and guessed they would have talked.

“Joe? He’s very concerned. Concerned about Jim and concerned about the damage to relations between the town and the reserve.”

“Have you seen Jim?”

His father nodded. “Saw him this morning. He’s not in great shape. He’s an outdoors kind of guy. Being locked up is pretty much a death sentence for him.”

“What’ll happen to him?”

“He’ll be shipped down to the district jail in Haileybury. I think he’s going on Monday. They’ve got a presiding judge there.”

“Who will find him guilty of murder,” Ian said bitterly. “In spite of the fact that the logger must have started it. Jim wouldn’t pick a fight.”

“His case will be put to the court,” his father said.

“By who?”

“The court appoints a defense lawyer.”

“Oh, right! The court appoints him. Some white guy straight from college who can’t get a job anywhere else.”

“You’re judging them in advance, Ian. You’re doing exactly what you’re accusing them of doing. Making assumptions based on prejudice.”

“I’m making assumptions based on Gerry Moynihan and a million guys just like him.”

“Gerry’s not all bad. He’s just a product of his upbringing.”

“Yeah, well, his upbringing stinks.”

His father sighed.

The cheese needed something to go with it. Ian opened the cupboard beside the fridge and took out a box of crackers. “Want one?”

They ate side by side, looking into the fridge. Ian’s anger slowly subsided. He knew it wasn’t fair to take it out on his father. He would be using his influence to do all that he could for Jim.

“We need a dog,” he said after a while.

“You’re thinking of the stew?”

“Yeah. She’s getting worse. Mrs. Tuttle, I mean.”

“Oh, well. She does her best,” his father said.

“No, she doesn’t, Dad.” His father was always making excuses for people. Maybe it was a nice fault, but it was irritating nonetheless.

The fridge hummed at them. Outside the wind was picking up. A volley of fat raindrops splattered against the kitchen window. Ian liked the sound: the combination of wind and rain always made the house feel safe.

“Seriously,” he said. “I’d like a dog.”

“So would I,” his father said musingly. “Maybe we should get one.”