Maccloud falls, p.41
macCLOUD FALLS, page 41
Gil picked up a card that was sitting on the table. ‘Welcome to Bliss, Jack and Marianne!’ it read.
There were two bedrooms, one double downstairs, and one small single up above in the rafters. ‘Well, at least we don’t have to share a bed tonight,’ he said, ‘No need for pillow walls.’ She didn’t answer, but gave him another of her slightly pained smiles. ‘It’s all so well done,’ he went on. ‘This woodwork is real craftsmanship.’
‘Her husband did it all. She said he was an architect before he retired, but that he loved carpentry more than anything.’ She too picked up the welcome card. ‘So you’re Jack and I’m Marianne tonight, are we?’
‘Looks like it,’ he smiled. ‘And she doesn’t mind Hero?’
‘She loves animals. Though she said not to let him on the beds.’
‘Well, I think it’s a very lucky find.’
‘Another one. That four leaf-clover is really doing good work.’ She opened the fridge and saw it was stocked with food, and the kitchen area was equipped with everything they could ever need, all unused. ‘We can have supper here,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Maybe barbeque and eat out on the deck?’
‘Sounds great.’
After they’d unpacked, they went for a stroll around the wedding complex with Hero, who reluctantly abandoned his emu-watch. At first neither spoke, but they fell into step with each other naturally. They found a little stream that ran through the heart of the clearing, with a perfect wooden bridge arched over it. Hero was immediately interested, but the water ran smooth and there were no waves to herd.
‘You know, I really didn’t mind sharing a bed with you in Little Forks,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t why I made the pillow wall.’
‘I know, Marianne.’
‘Stop it, Jack,’ she said, feigning annoyance. ‘Seriously, these last few days with you I’ve probably been happier than at any time for ages.’
‘Same here,’ he said. ‘But?’
‘But what?’
‘I sense a but…’
‘Ah… well, I guess I’m not much good at relationships.’
‘My track record isn’t so great either.’
‘But I do love being with you. It’s so free of friction, somehow.’
‘That’s a ‘but’ I like. I feel that too.’
‘It’s almost like being alone.’
He laughed. ‘That’s the nicest thing anybody ever said to me.’
As they walked on up the hill towards the chapel, Gil found the moment to ask the question he’d had on his mind for a while. ‘But there is another man, isn’t there?’
‘There is… was… half of a man. One I share… shared.’
‘Interesting. And these messages your phone keeps jumping into life with. They’re from him?’
‘Some. I’m sort of on the run from him right now.’
‘Ah! One of the pursued. He’s not using GPS to track us or anything? He’s not suddenly going to appear?’
‘God, I hope not,’ she gasped.
‘Well, it sounds like a fine mess you’re in. But as sure as my name’s Jack, you are a very remarkable person, and you deserve to be happy.’
She laughed, and took his arm as they walked. ‘You’re very witty, but sometimes I wish you’d be a bit more direct.’
‘Jack may be my first name, but my middle name is Irony,’ he said, and she pulled her arm away to punch him gently on the shoulder.
‘You know, if you could write like you talk,’ she said, ‘You wouldn’t need that stick.’ And she took his arm again.
They came to a signpost, which indicated one way to Chapel and the other to Dining and Dancing. He said he thought that dining sounded good, but she replied that chapel must be first, so they carried on up the path till they came to a low building, covered in shingles, that reminded him of the little Indian church in Cloud Falls. Outside an arrow pointed towards the doors: ‘I DO’, it said, and further off, behind that, leading out from the exit at the other end, another similar arrow read ‘WE DID’.
‘I guess you go in one end single and come out the other married,’ she said. ‘And inside you jump the broomstick, or whatever.’ She tried the handles and they turned. ‘The doors are open,’ she said. ‘Shall we have a look?’
‘Hang on, though, shouldn’t I be waiting for you at the altar and then you make your entrance?’
She laughed. ‘You’re taking this all a bit seriously, suddenly. Anyway, I haven’t got anyone to give me away.’
‘You have Hero,’ he said. ‘Who could be better?’
‘He would never give me away,’ she said. ‘Not even on my wedding day, would you, lad?’ She pulled open the double doors and went inside. The little chapel smelled of new wood, and some fragrance or incense that had been burning there during the ceremony. It had proper pews, old ones that must have come from some disused church, but the rest of it was newly v-lined pine, both floor and walls. In the far end was a piece of stained glass, in the window of the exit door.
‘It’s charming,’ she said.
Gil followed her in, looking around. It reminded him of one of the plain wooden kirk interiors in Scotland, bereft of decoration since the Reformation, where the little congregation would gather to sing unaccompanied psalms, led by their minister. But there was no altar, no crosses, nothing Christian about the building, and nothing particularly new age or wacky either. Aside from the pews, the only furnishing was a kind of cast-iron trolley, which bore an abstract metal candelabra and a large book with the single word WEDDINGS embossed in gold. He opened it and saw that there was only one entry, Mr John and Mrs Chris Chang-Powick, two days prior, with their address and their signatures, as if it were a guest house’s visitors’ book.
She was peering out the window beside the exit. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘What a view to step out on in your new life together!’ He came over to where she stood and looked. It was indeed spectacular, forested into the far distance, but with a small lake, almost hidden by the contours, shining bright blue.
‘Fabulous,’ he said, and tried to open the exit door, but it was locked. ‘Oh well, I suppose we can’t because we didn’t.’
‘Look,’ she said. ‘The confetti is still here.’
He stepped back to where she was standing. ‘Where?’ he asked.
‘See, there,’ she said, ‘Among the grass.’
He leaned close, to look at it from her angle, and saw the pastel-coloured paper shapes of tiny hearts and stars. Their breath met the window glass at the same time, and clouded together. For one moment, each felt the warmth of the other. Then she put her head on his shoulder and said, quietly, ‘So do you remember that woman from Calgary on the plane who’s writing our story?’
‘I do.’
‘She thought you should have kissed me then.’
‘Should I have?’
‘It was in the script.’
‘And it isn’t any longer?’
‘Not such a good shot. You’d have to twist your neck around and it would be awkward.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s true, I could do myself an injury. Or show my red neck to the camera.’
She laughed, pulled his collar down, and examined the laser mark closely. ‘It’s not so bad, Gil. It’s hard to see with all your sunburn. It’s not like you have a scar.’ And she kissed the burn mark gently. ‘There,’ she said. ‘It’s all better now.’
No one had touched his neck since the hospital, and it made him flinch. He felt a cold shiver pass through him, right down to his toes, and he stepped away from her. ‘We’ll have to go back the way we came in,’ he said. ‘This door’s locked.’
A little troubled by his reaction, she followed him back through the pews. ‘If we go out this door, does ‘I do’ become ‘Do I?’ she wondered out loud.
He didn’t respond, but said, instead, ‘I think it’s time for the dining and dancing now.’
Hero was waiting by the entrance, and together the three of them walked in silence across the clearing in the direction indicated, till they saw a covered deck with balloons still hanging from its beams, the guest tables all set out, some with the odd empty glass and wilting flowers in vases. Against the back wall, on a raised dais, was a long table for the bride and groom and their attendants and, further over, a small bandstand with a piano under a rain cover. Behind the bridal table, a banner read ‘JOHN & CHRIS’.
‘It’s so pretty here,’ she said. ‘Must have been a lovely wedding.’
They stopped at the steps to the dais. He held out his hand for her, and she took it, then climbed up, crossed behind the chairs and sat in the middle, where the bride would have been. And he took the chair beside her. They looked out over the empty tables and seats to where Hero was staring back at them, as if wondering what they were doing.
‘It’s so wonderful that all our friends and family are here with us to share this special day,’ Gil said to the curious dog, who tilted his head to one side, aware that he was being addressed, but not understanding the irony.
‘And especially you, lad,’ she added. Hero wagged his tail a little, but didn’t move.
They sat a while looking out at the scene, the beautiful setting beyond the deck, where the sun was shining and everything was summery green.
‘Do you remember, back in Vancouver, how I told you that if I was dying, I’d get married?’
‘You said it was on your bucket list, I believe.’
‘Yes. Well, this is the place.’
He put a cupped hand to his ear. ‘What’s that you say, Hero? I may kiss the bride? Really?’
‘Stop it,’ she said, laughing. ‘Remember, we didn’t do it?’
‘No. That’s true,’ he said. ‘So what about some dancing, anyway?’
Without a word, she got up and went over to the upright piano, pulled the cover off, then lifted the lid. ‘I hope they don’t keep this out here all the time,’ she said, ‘It’ll ruin it.’ And she tinkled the keys, then played a few scales. ‘Not too out of tune,’ she said.
‘Do you play then?’ he asked, from his bridegroom seat.
‘I used to,’ she answered, and sat down on the stool. ‘Remember you told me that story about Martina the pianist? That was closer to the truth than you knew.’
She gazed at the black and white keys, from which a million colours could arise. The last time she’d played had been on his beautiful piano at his cabin on Bowen, looking out through the glass facade across the sea. He liked her to play while he was working in the other room.
Hero trotted over and lay at her feet, looking up expectantly. Her fingers found their place, were poised, ready, for a piece she knew by heart, had known by heart since she was a girl.
Gil waited, wondering what she’d do. What emerged from the piano was not what he expected, though, not some familiar song but a gentle repeated melody he thought he’d heard before, but not one he knew. She played with such assurance, her hands flowing over the keys while she gazed straight ahead, as if in a trance. Then the mood changed, became minor key and melancholic, and another melody drifted across to where he sat, played on the bass notes but with the same insistent repetition. Her eyes closed, and then he heard another change, from minor to major, and as she played he saw that pained smile of hers spread slowly over her face, while her hands picked out the melody and kept the same punctuating repetition. As the last notes sounded, a single handclap that became a sequence sounded from behind them. They both turned to look and saw a tall thin man with thick jet-black hair was standing just outside the awning, listening. For a moment Gil thought it was him, her lover, having tracked them down.
‘I heard the music. Chopin, wasn’t it?’ the interloper said.
‘His Raindrop Prelude,’ she answered, slightly surprised by the audience, but pleased he’d recognised it.
‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘Written in Majorca while he and Georges Sand were living there. She overheard him composing it and thought it sounded like rain on the tiles of the roof.’
‘That’s right.’
He stepped forward. ‘I’m Kirk, by the way. Kirk Douglas, Kathy’s husband.’ Veronika and Gil looked at each other. ‘I know, I know, I get that all the time. Guess my mother thought it would be a good name.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me playing your piano.’
‘No, it was wonderful. I swear that old thing never sounded near as good before.’
‘So you’re the architect?’ Gil said.
‘I am.’
‘It’s wonderful what you’re building here,’ she said.
The man laughed, a deep musical chuckle. ‘It’s Kathy’s dream, really. She’s always been a romantic. I don’t have too much to do with it. She just tells me what she wants and I build it. The idea and all the little touches are hers, though. She tells me you guys have been on a road trip up in the interior? Where’d you go?’
Gil got up from the bride’s table and stepped down on to the deck, as Veronika came over from the piano, until the three stood in the sunlight outside.
‘We started out from Cloud Falls,’ he said, ‘Then went on through Merritt and up the Nicola Valley to Kamloops. From there, we drove north to visit friends in Little Forks.’
‘They took us up to Helmcken Falls,’ Veronika added. ‘And wow, was that a sight!’
‘And then driving back we came through the Southern Cariboo and down to Clinton, then followed the canyon back to Cloud Falls, and south from there.’
‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘So you’ve seen a fair bit of the interior. And what’s so special about Cloud Falls?
Veronika spoke first. ‘Gil’s been researching a relative who used to live there,’ she said. ‘He’s from Scotland.’
‘You know the place? Cloud Falls, I mean,’ Gil asked.
‘I do. You know the new outdoor theatre there? That was designed by a local woman who trained with us,’ the architect said.
‘Huh! That’s amazing you should know her,’ Veronika observed.
The architect smiled at her. ‘Well, not really. It’s not amazing that a place like that would have an architect, and although there’s not all that many aboriginal architects in BC, there are quite a few these days. And we’re all very well aware of that project.’ He spoke with the authority of a man who’d been responding to surprise over what he was doing all his life, and had worked out all arguments. He didn’t bristle with defensiveness, on the contrary he seemed genial and friendly, even as he undermined the implicit assumption. ‘What’s really amazing is that you found your way up here when we’re not even open,’ he added.
Gil explained. ‘We just pulled off the highway and saw the sign. I mean, who wouldn’t be intrigued by the road to happy ever after.’
‘And you were looking for a happy ending? Must be fate,’ he said with a grin.
Veronika remembered Sara using the same phrase just the day before.
‘Listen, why don’t you come over and eat with us tonight? I was just going to spark the barbie, as they say in Australia. Unless you’d prefer to be alone?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Veronika said, a little taken aback by his gentle put-down. ‘Thanks all the same. We’ve been on the road since early and I’m dead beat.’ She looked at Gil, who seemed a little disappointed. ‘But you go. Sounds as if you two have things to talk about.’
‘Well, come on over if you like. The house is just there and there’ll be plenty of food.’
He left them then, walking down the slope together, towards their cabin. Towards ‘Bliss’.
‘I didn’t know you could play piano like that,’ Gil said. ‘It was so beautiful.’
‘There’s a whole lot you don’t know about me.’
‘I’ll bet there is. Are you sure you don’t mind if I go over there for a while? I won’t stay late. It’s just I’d like to know more about that new building up in Cloud Falls.’
‘No of course not. It’s not like we’re some married couple who have to check everything we do with the other, now is it? You go. I could do with some down-time, to be honest.’
‘But you’ll be hungry.’
‘No I won’t. There’s plenty to snack on back at the cabin.’
She watched as he went after the architect, speeding his stride to catch him. At the top of the rise he did, and the two of them walked on, already deep in conversation. Talk about lucky, she thought.
Did lucky things always happen around him? He seemed to think it was her magic touch. Or was it the combination, the two of them together? Maybe this was just one of those lucky sequences that come along once or twice in a lifetime – if you’re lucky. She laughed to herself. Twin lucky. Doubly lucky. Dublucky, Gil would say.
When she got back to the cabin called Bliss, she took her journal out and opened it carefully to where the four-leaf clover lay pressed. It was drying out, fading a little, but it was real. She wrote for a while, a few notes on what she’d seen that day. Then she checked her cell. There was no reception, though she was picking up a wifi signal, HEA123, probably the business, but it was passworded.
Hero came over and tried to jump up on the bed, but she shooed him down, and he went to lie in the shadow, sulking. So she went to the bathroom, to the sunken bath she’d had her eye on ever since Kathy first showed her the cabin. After a day on the road, the chance to test it out, and see what nice free toiletries there were, seemed very appealing. She found a robe and slippers still wrapped, set the taps to run, then undressed. Her feet felt sore, though she really hadn’t walked all that far. They were more swollen from the heat and the nail polish was chipped and worn. She blamed those shoes, they’d never quite fitted, though they looked good on. Deciding to have a pedicure when she got back to Vancouver, she put the robe on and went to check the water.
As she waved her hand through the foaming water, the thought occurred that he might be there. What if he was waiting outside her apartment with his bag, if he’d told his wife like he’d said he was going to in his text, and had left her? And then his mistress turned up, laughing and joking with another man? She pictured the scene, him sitting in his white Volvo across the road, then her car pulling up, driven by Gil. It made her smile for moment, but only because she knew it would never ever happen. Would it?
