Hardly Working

“I agree. Cougar,” said Ida.

“Girl Guide. Jake, you’re a fake,” said Lisa. “It’s an old joke, that one.”

“You nailed me, Lisa,” said Jake, his hands in the air.

“News for all you fish eaters, and that means you, too, Cleo,” I said. “The ocean’s fish stocks are only depleted by ninety percent and most of what you get these days is fish farm stuff. You should know that. That’s the other fake.”

“Oh friggin’ great. Big consolation. But you and I win, Dinah,” said Lisa, “which means the rest of you guys are paying for our cream puffs. The cougar headline was in the Sun this morning. I’m surprised you guys missed it. He’s been roaming around Vancouver and they just can’t seem to catch him.”

“We’re getting these cougar sightings around here from time to time,” said Jake, “but it’s been a while now. Then there’s the coyote situation. Damned forestry practices. They cut down the damned forests, these big cats lose their damned habitat, have no damned place to go, so what does anybody expect? They come into town on the log booms, stir up trouble.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were making it up,” said Cleo.

“No way,” said Lisa, “and these are not happy animals. They’re feeling pretty crazy mad by the time they hit town. Look behind you when you’re walking down the street.”

“I knew about the coyotes. But cougars,” said Cleo. “Who would have thought it?”

I said, “The only wildlife you’ve had your eye trained on lately, Cleo, is homo sapiens, the male of the species.”

“True, true.” She smiled.

“There hasn’t been a cougar sighting since you’ve been here. Not in the last two years,” I said.

“There’s a whole variety of urban critters out there, believe me, Cleo. Our building was skunked last week,” said Lisa. “Little stripey guy got into the basement bin under the garbage chute. Quite the distinctive odor is skunk.”

“And speaking of distinctive odors,” said Ida. “How come the new CEO, Mr. Ferrari, isn’t here stuffing his face with butter cream bons bons like the rest of us? Boy, does he smell good.”

Jake polished his bald spot nervously and gave his mustache a little good luck tug. “Time management thing.”

“Yeah. The management ain’t got no time for us, eh?” joked Lisa.

“And what about the new girl?” Ida went on. “What’s her name again?”

“Penelope,” said Jake, perking up.

“How come she isn’t here either?” asked Ida.

Cleo said, “You have to make a choice, Ida. It’s Penelope or Dinah. The office virgin has taken a disliking to poor Di.”

“I thought Ash was the office virgin,” piped up Ida.

“We don’t really know anything about Ash,” said Cleo, grinning and wiggling her eyebrows.

“Just to change the subject slightly, I wonder how Ian Trutch is going to go down with our Indian volunteers?” Lisa pondered.

“Lisa!” We all pounced. “You can’t say that. It’s so politically incorrect.”

“Oh jeez, you guys. Dots not feathers.”

We all sat back. “Oh…okay then.”

Dinah Nichols the eco-depressive. It was another one of the reasons I was seeing Thomas. And again, I liked to blame my mother for forcing me to absorb a lifetime of scientific data that promises nothing good.

At night when I closed my eyes, the vision came to me on schedule. I could see the whole planet from a distance, the way the astronauts must have first seen it. But I saw it with an eagle’s eye, first hovering way off, out in infinity, and then honing in and zooming to all the trouble spots. The Chernobyls, the devastated rain forests, El Nino, the quakes and mudslides, the beached whales, the factories everywhere pumping and flushing out their toxins, cars, a gazillion cars studding the planet, and a brown sludge forming around the big blue ball like a sinister new stratosphere. It was only headline overload, but sometimes it got me down so low, it was hard to get out of bed.

Tuesday

By 8:00 a.m., I had learned that Ian Trutch was damaging our grassroots image even further by staying in a plush suite on the Gold Floor of the Hotel Vancouver. After a brilliant example of minor urban infiltration, I also found out very brusquely that nonguest people like me weren’t allowed to wander its corridors, not even with the lame excuse of having to deliver business-related papers. No siree.

When I got back out to the street after the nasty run-in with the Gold Floor receptionist, there was a parking ticket shoved under the windshield wiper of my battered red antique Mini. I swear, even to this day, that they moved that fire hydrant next to the car while I was inside.

I drove fast back to Broadway and the Green World International office. I was twenty minutes late for work because I had to play musical parking spaces for half an hour and then run ten blocks to the office. Of course, Ian Trutch was there to see me arrive late and all sweaty and flustered. He gave me an inquisitive blue stare and tiny smile, then went off to monitor somebody else.

I went into my office and shut the door. It was opened again immediately by Lisa, who pretended to have important business with me but was really just hiding from one of the needy cases. Every so often, some loafer would shuffle in off the street and say, “Hey, man, I’m a charitable cause, you guys do stuff for charities, so waddya gonna do for me?” And Lisa, being Miss High Serotonin Levels, and “good with people,” had been elected to handle them.

Lisa eyed my collection of office toys then picked up my Gumby doll and tied his legs in a knot. I looked up at her. With her blond hair in braids, her lack of makeup, and loose pastel Indian cottons over woolen sweaters, she looked as though she’d stepped through a time warp directly from Haight-Ashbury, from a gathering of thirtysomething flower children.

I said, “Another passenger from Dreck Central, eh, Lisa?”

“Shhh. It’s that bushy guy again. His name’s Roly. You know the nutty one with the long gray hair and beard who always wears the full rain gear right down to the Sou’wester? He keeps coming around and asking for me. I guess I shouldn’t have been so nice to him.”

“Lisa. You don’t know how not to be nice.”

“Shhh. If he hears my voice he’ll want to come in here. I mean, I feel really awful. It’s not that I mind him really. He’s quite polite. Quite a gentleman really. Not like some of the human wreckage that washes up here. But I just don’t feel like dealing with him today. He’s so darn persistent. He keeps asking me out for lunch. I mean, he’s a street person. Don’t get me wrong. He’s clean for a street person but he wears that nutty rain gear all the time. You just have to look at him to know who’ll be paying for the lunch. Yours truly. If it wasn’t so sad it would be sweet.”

“Hey, but Lise. It’s cool. It’s a date. That’s more than I can say for myself.”

“Sure. Right. And that Penelope’s driving me nutty, too. You know what she said? She thinks we should clean up our image. She says our phone voices are no good, that my way of speaking when I deal with the public is too raunchy.”

“Oh God, Lisa, for her to even use the word raunchy is sexual tourism. What could she possibly know about raunchy?”

My phone rang as if on cue. I picked it up with a voice as smooth as extra-virgin olive oil, and said, “Green World International. Dinah Nichols speaking.”

“Halliwell’s here,” said the phone voice.

I put my hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Lisa, “The pain-in-the-butt printer,” took my hand off and said, “Hello, Mr. Halliwell.”

Halliwell drawled, “Are we going to get that campaign material some time this decade, Miss Nichols, or should I give you up for dead?”

I watched as Lisa put down Gumby and picked up Mr. Potato Head. She ripped out all of his features and limbs then rearranged them in unlikely places.

I pulled my Magic Eight Ball out of my drawer, gave it a shake, and read the message into the phone, “Well, Mr. Halliwell, signs point to yes.”

“Yes dead? Or yes this decade?” he growled.

“This decade,” I said.

That seemed to satisfy him. He grunted and hung up.

Lisa said, “I guess I better go back and deal with the dreck. Hey Dinah, don’t forget about the protest tomorrow, eh? We should be able to get out and back over lunchtime.”

“Yeah, okay. Where did you say it was?”

But she had already gone.

After that, with Ian Trutch’s nearby presence forcing me into uber-employee mode, I plunged myself into real work and finished all the campaign material for Halliwell that morning.

Around lunchtime, Jake knocked on my door. He looked like a kid on Christmas Eve. “There’s somebody here for you, Dinah. Waiting by the coffeemaker.”

I left my desk and went out to see who it was.

My mother was dressed in her favorite town outfit; hiking boots, anorak, and gold and diamond jewelry. Everyone in the main room was staring at her and groveling and calling her Dr. Nichols with awe in their voices. My mother is, after all, quite a famous scientist. She’s been on TV countless times to talk about the destruction of the natural order and extinction of the planet’s wildlife.

I said, “Mom. You’re supposed to be in Alaska.”

“Cancelled. Sent one of the masters students. Old enough to know what he’s doing by now. Came over with the new undergrads. To break them in, you know.”

She always came to Vancouver in her own boat, unless the weather was really rough. She made her students come along as crew because it was important to know if they were sea-worthy or not. She moored in the marina under the Burrard Bridge.

“Thought we might have a bite of lunch then do a spot of shopping.”

It was a good thing Ian Trutch was out of the room because then she got that tone in her voice. “Di Di. I thought we could make it a belated birthday lunch, poppy. Have a reservation at the Yacht Club. Then we can pick out a nice little birthday treat for you.” It only took those few syllables, Di Di and poppy, to make me feel twelve years old again.

Half an hour later, I was inside the Yacht Club lunching with my mother. She plunged her knife into the thick steak and carved. A mountain of roast potatoes filled the rest of her plate, and on another plate, vegetable lasagna. And after that, she’d be ready for the dessert tray to roll by, perhaps even twice.

I stared bleakly at my chef’s salad. It looked the way I felt; sad and a little limp.

It was unfair, so unfair that my mother should be statuesque and lean, with an aristocratic bone structure, and the appetite of ten men, and I should be like one of the scullery maids in her castle, of the shorter, stockier, full-thighed peasant variety. Not that I’m fat. I’m not fat. My thighs are simply my genetic inheritance. No amount of dieting would ever add the extra length I desired. As I’d often said to Thomas, my mother was Beluga caviar; I was Lumpfish.

“I thought perhaps a rather nice navy-blue duffel coat I saw down in that British import shop near Kerrisdale,” she said, through her mouthful.

Oh great, I thought, then I can walk through the streets looking like an enormous navy-blue duffel bag.

She was the only woman I knew who could wear hiking gear and diamonds together, talk with her mouth full, and inspire the husbands lunching with their wives at other tables to sneak longing glances at her. Even though it was a deception really, my mother’s entire look, her vibration, her persona, said, “Come and get me. We’ll have hours of athletic no-strings-attached sex. After a brisk climb to the top of the Himalayas, of course.” My mother demands a lot from her men, but never in the way that they hope or expect.

“I know what I want for my birthday, Mom.”

“Do you? Oh, lovely. Tell me then.”

I told her.

Her hands froze in midair. She didn’t know whether to put her fork down or move it to her mouth. All the color had drained from her face. “Don’t ask me that, Dinah. You simply can’t ask me that,” she said, quietly.

“Of course I can, Mom.”

“But it would be like opening Pandora’s Box. You’ve no idea.”

“I know. That is the idea. I want to open Pandora’s Box. I have to. It’s me we’re talking about. Not you. I can’t wait forever. You’ve got to tell me. First of all, everyone needs to know about their parents even if it’s only for genetic purposes, to eliminate the possibilities of transmitting diabetes, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, porphyria…”

“Porphyria, Dinah? The disease of vampires? Good lord, dear, the only vampire in our family was Uncle Fred who worked for the Internal Revenue.”

“Now, Mom. I need to know now. Before something happens to one or the other of us.”

My mother flashed me a startled look. She sat very still for what seemed like an eternity. I’ll always remember the moment, because it could have gone either way and I would be a different sort of person for it today, wouldn’t I? White sails slid past the Yacht Club window and sliced through the glistening windy October ocean.

Slowly, my mother started to move. She reached down for her bag, pulled out a pen and piece of paper, wrote something down, then offered it to me. “This may be out of date but I don’t think so, if what I’ve heard through the grapevine is true. I don’t know if you ever met Rupert Doyle, rather a long time ago…”

I had a memory of a tall lanky ecstatic man, hair like tiny black bedsprings, bouncing me on his shoulders. I recalled storytelling after some big meals, and hearing from my room later the waves of hysterical adult laughter rising up to me until I drifted off to sleep. He told stories of exotic places where the landscape was in brighter warmer colors and people died suddenly and dramatically.

I said, “When I was little. He was often over at the house, I think.”

“Yes. That’s right. He might be able to help you. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject. You do what you like. But after this moment, I don’t want to hear another word about it for as long as I live. Do you understand, Dinah? Not one word.”

Well, happy, happy birthday.

The words scribbled on the piece of paper were Rupert Doyle, Eldorado Hotel.

That night, at home, I Googled Rupert Doyle. The situation was looking good. Up came a number of Web sites listing documentaries that Rupert Doyle had produced, some of them award winners. War zones, famine zones, and sometimes, royal sex scandal zones. Where there was disaster, hunger en masse, or a violent uprising, Rupert Doyle was there getting it on videotape for posterity. There was even a photo. It looked like the man I remembered, but twenty-five years older.

At work I was puffed up with pride just thinking about Rupert Doyle. I was already a taller, smarter, longer-thighed person for having his name written on that little slip of paper. I couldn’t wait to tell Thomas about it. Around the office, I managed to drop the name “Rupert Doyle” into at least three work-focused conversations that had nothing to do whatsoever with the kind of thing Rupert Doyle was involved with, like political documentaries about South America or Africa or the UK.

While Jake was talking about Shelter Recycling Project funds, I really pushed my luck and said, “You know, perhaps we could get Rupert Doyle, an old family friend of mine, to document the Shelter Recycling Project. I’m sure he’d do it if I asked him.”

Everyone looked at me as if to say, “Enough with this Doyle guy already, Dinah.”

Then Ian Trutch said, “Rupert Who?”

And I sort of stammered and said, “Rupert Doyle’s a very important person, a film producer.”

“Never heard of him,” said Ian Trutch.

So I blathered on, “Well, he’s an important person. He’s like…ah…Michael Moore. Would you say no to Michael Moore if he offered to come along and do a short for your organization? No, you wouldn’t. It’s about the same thing.” I was getting red in the face by then, and feeling quite small.

Wednesday

The portico of the Eldorado Hotel was framed in ceramic tile that must have once been white but was now stained yellow. The glass in its doorway was smudged with a month’s worth of dirty handprints. Inside, the air smelled of smoke, stale beer and Lysol. The sound of peppery upbeat music shuddered through the whole hotel. Behind a cramped reception desk with an old bronze grate, at the start of the corridor, a man with a papery thin skin poked letters into numbered slots. I cleared my throat and said, “Excuse me, I’m looking for Rupert Doyle. I was told he had a room here.” The man jerked his head toward the music and said, “You’ll find him in the lounge.” Then he leaned forward, about to become confidential. His face crinkled up like an accordion and he added, “Drinking with the Cubans.”

I hesitated then hurried down the corridor. When I stepped into the lounge, I felt as though I were inside a large streaky bell pepper. The walls were a wet dark red with the old wooden siding painted green and yellow. A mud-colored linoleum dance floor, stippled by a million stiletto heels, took up the centre of the lounge. A chubby middle-aged couple moved across it to a salsa rhythm, seeing only each other.

Up at the bar, a huge man was hunched in conversation with a short fat dark man. The tall man had the Rupert Doyle hair I remembered except that it was completely silver and he had a silver three-day growth of beard to match. His tall powerful bearlike body was almost exactly the same except for a slight thickening through the waist and chest. Otherwise, he was the same.

I approached him uncertainly. “Rupert Doyle?”

He swung around, saw me and said, “Christ.”

Now he was frowning.

“Mr. Doyle?”

“Do I know you?” He was cautious.

“Sort of,” I replied.

He was handsome. One of what I call the electric men. You can see ideas sparking in their eyes, the life force coursing through their bodies. As if they’d been given a double dose of energy right at the start. There was still a remnant of that old ecstasy in his face, but it had been tested over the years and now was worn down to vague contentment.

I didn’t give him a chance to blow it.

I came right out with it.

I said, “I’m Marjory Nichol’s daughter. My mother said I’d find you here.”

He put his hand on his heart. “Oh Jesus.” Then he put his hand to his head. “Christ. What a shock. That explains it. You scared the life out of me.”

“I did?”

“Just give me a second. Now. Marjory Nichols. Hell. You’re…? Goddamn. You’re…uh…wait a minute…Diane.”

“Dinah. You used to come round to our house years ago.”

“Well, sure I did. Of course I did. Stand back and let me look at you. How about that. So, well… How about that? Goddamn. You’re Marjory’s daughter.”

“Yes, I am.”

“How is your mom, anyway? How’s Marjory. I haven’t seen her in ages. I keep meaning to get in touch but life has a way of conspiring against old friendships….”

“Fine. She’s fine.”

“I keep meaning to get in touch but I’m often on the move. You know, I caught her on TV, that interview she did on the dying oceans for the BBC, a couple of years back. She sure is something. I was about to pick up the phone but as usual was interrupted by a business call. I’m rarely in the country these days and when I am, it’s all work.”

“She’s often on the move too so…”

“Yes, right, well, good, Marjory’s daughter. Unbelievable how time flies. You were just a little kid the last time I saw you….”

Then I blurted it out. No formalities. “I made her tell me. How to find you. You know? She knew how badly I wanted to meet my father. And well, now, here we are.”

Rupert Doyle’s eyes opened a little wider and took on the shape of half-moons as he peered. He took a step backward and held up his hands as if he were pushing me away. “Nooo,” he exhaled. “No, no. Just a minute now. You’re making a big mistake.”

Chapter Four

I was devastated. My first thought was, What’s so horrendous about me that you don’t want to admit that I’m your daughter? A minidepression was starting to form in me, like a tiny whirlwind building into a hurricane, with a pinch of pure rage tossed in for good measure.

I wanted to run crying to Thomas, make one of my emergency calls to him.

But Rupert Doyle read my expression right away. Total dejection edged with fury. He leapt in to correct himself. “No, no, please, don’t misunderstand. It’s not the way you think…you think I’m your father? Is that it?”

I nodded.

“I’m not your father…Dinah.”

I shook my head.

“I may have a few kids scattered around the world for all I know, but you’re certainly not one of them. Rest easy in the knowledge.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye.

“That’s not to say I wouldn’t be proud to be your father. But I’m not him. You’re too young to know about it but I can’t tell you how many men, myself included, wanted your mother to be the mother of their children. That woman was something special. Imagine she still is. Marjory Nichols had us all hopping like fools for the love of her. Damn her anyway.”

I started to frown and then to laugh. He laughed, too, and suddenly my mother’s powers of attraction gave us common ground, something to grab on to, to make us old friends, as though he had been a constant visitor to the house for the last twenty-five years.

He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, like someone waking from a long sleep. He seemed about to say something but his words were replaced with a frustrated sigh. Until he finally said, “Listen. I do know who your father is.”

I gave my own huge sigh of relief.

He smiled. “Your mother probably didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“She can be a very stubborn woman.” His expression was odd, his blue eyes luminous.

“You’re telling me. I mean, we’re talking about my own father and I’m not allowed to know anything about him. I’m only just realizing now how pissed off I’ve been with her for not telling me about him. Information is advancement, evolution. She’s not being very scientific.”

Rupert Doyle chuckled. “Here, Dinah. Sit down.” He pointed to the scarred black bar stool. “Can I order you something? A beer?”

“A coffee…” But then I saw the glass pot on the hotplate behind the bar, untouched brew with a scummy encrusted high tide line, so I accepted a soda water.

Rupert Doyle said, “I can imagine how your mother probably feels about this and I don’t want to be responsible for starting a family war. They’re the worst. So you need to go carefully with this one. Your father is what I’d call a…difficult character…apart from the fact that he’s volatile…he has…he had the power to take people places where they didn’t always want to go.”

“Who is he? Tell me something about him.”

He stroked his chin. “Yeah…well, now. Let me think about this. I can do better than tell you about him. I can introduce you to him.”

“He’s here? In Vancouver?”

“Sure is. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to go about this.”

“Why? Is there a problem?”

“We really did not part as the best of friends.” Rupert shook his head and let a small bitter laugh escape.

“Well, I’m not too secure about this whole thing myself. You’re scaring me a bit.”

“Oh, no…don’t take this the wrong way…”

“Mr. Doyle…”

“Rupert.”

“Rupert. I’d like to get a glimpse of him first. From a distance, you know? Not have to commit myself. Without him knowing anything about me.”

“Sure. Of course, Dinah. In the interests of not prejudicing your opinion, I can see how you’d want to take your time before you decide whether or not you really want to get to know the man. You might take one look and decide it’s better not to. He might not want to have anything to do with you. Or me.” He laughed again.

“What’s the problem?” I was picturing my mother with some impossible kind of man. A married politician? Another mad scientist? “Does he have a high-profile job or something? Would this create a scandal for him?”