Causeway: A Passage From Innocence Read Online Free Page B

bed.
    Jack was an electrician, a line of work no less mysterious to me than Louis J. Rasminsky’s job. I couldn’t have imagined, just a couple of years earlier, sitting here like this: Jack and I, a couple of working men with wives and children. And I a reporter on Parliament Hill.
    “Amazing the way things turn out,” Jack noted. And then he asked about my parents.
    “Great,” I replied.
    “And I hear Dan Rory is home for good.”
    “He is, apparently,” I said.
    Home for good, I thought—again.
    There were a few more drinks, and Jack wisely suggested that I have a short nap on the chesterfield before trying to drive home.
    There was an ominous blue light in the room when I realized where I was. That was followed by an instant surge of self-recrimination. There was also a powerful nausea churning deep in my guts.
    Mercifully they weren’t up yet when I crept in.
    Breakfast was silent. They understood, I reassured myself, about being young and having friends I hardly ever saw anymore now that I was married with three kids of my own and a job on Parliament Hill that was turning me into an old man before my time.
    Sunday Mass was interminable, and I know I attracted curious stareswhen I had to leave at one point to throw up outside. The wind was damp with the probability of a storm before the end of the day. I had to be in Sydney by three, to reconnect with the travelling Cabinet ministers. I’d rarely experienced such a profound, stunning sense of misery.
    I did my best to make small talk on the drive to the airport. The true menace of the weather became apparent on the top of Kelly’s Mountain, where the rain thickened and turned into sleet and left treacherous ridges of slush on the pavement. The old man was driving carefully, and we discussed whether he was going to be okay on the drive back.
    No problem, he assured me. He’d just take it easy. Worse comes to worst, he’d just pull over to the side. Or drop in some place. He knew people all over the island, from working underground for so long. Cape Breton is famous for coal mines, but the most renowned Cape Breton miners were the rural fellows who went off to work in hard-rock mines all over the country. All over the world, actually.
    “The thing is whether that plane will take off,” he said.
    “They never seem to have a problem taking off,” I said.
    “Probably that’s true.”
    The airport seemed empty—no sign of the politicians. One of the political assistants explained that there was a meeting going on somewhere, and it was lasting longer than they expected. I suddenly felt awkward, just standing around.
    “The weather is closing in,” I said finally. “Maybe I’ll just go on board the plane, and you can get back on the road.”
    “Whatever you think yourself,” he said.
    We stood facing each other for a moment, each probably wondering what to do. A handshake would have been pompous; a hug was out of the question. So we just stood there.
    “Well,” I said, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry about last night—getting stranded like that.”
    “It was the wise thing to do,” he said. There was no evidence of reproach in the tight little smile.
    “Next time,” I said. “Next time we’ll…maybe go for a little tour together. Maybe out to the mountain. Visit Grandma.”
    “Sure,” he said. “Lots of time for that.”
    “Say hello to her, will you?”
    “Right on.”
    We were just standing in the empty airport, hands in our pockets.
    “Okay, then,” I said at last. “I’ll be off.”
    And I turned and went out into the wind and the rain and dashed across the tarmac to the waiting plane.
    I found a window seat and, after I was settled, looked towards the terminal building. He was still there, standing in the window. We waved at each other. After that I dozed off. Then, maybe twenty minutes later, I was wakened by a commotion at the front. The two Cabinet ministers and a posse of helpers were coming on board, complaining bitterly