Return to Spinner's Inlet

by Don Hunter

  “She started to open her jacket, just as Harry walked out from behind the house, carrying his assault rifle. She stared at him and put her hand on a red square on the bomb pack. Harry spoke to her, using the Pashto language I’d been helping him learn. He told her quietly that what she was about to do was against the true spirit of Islam and not what Allah wanted. I don’t know if he actually believed it, but he got her attention—for a moment. While he spoke, he raised his rifle.

  “He spoke to the girl again, asking her to take off the bomb pack. She smiled at him, nodded—and stabbed a finger at the red square. Harry was responding to his training. He shot her. He followed the ambulance to the hospital and waited by her bed for two days, before she died.

  “She was seven years old. Her name was Aila, same as my wife. And the same age as Harry’s daughter. The bomb squad found that her device was improperly wired and would not have detonated. Harry cried. He’s been crying, in a way, ever since.

  “The army did try to help him, declared him as suffering from PTSD and referred him to their best doctors. But the damage was too deep. His life fell apart. He lost his wife, who left with their daughter, and his home. He had been due for promotion to sergeant. Harry said he had no interest in promotion, or anything further to do with the army. He would leave the regiment, but he insisted that the army keep their promise, that they would help interpreters and their families get to Canada, when the Canadians left. We had heard that the British were backing down on the same promise, leaving people like us to the Taliban. The army kept their promise and here we are.

  “I found where Harry was living—on the streets in Vancouver—and now he has a new home, with us, for as long as he needs it.”

  Silas Cotswold had smiled as he read Girard’s last line. “You’re getting the hang of it, Cameron,”

  Ali did not show at the school for the next week, and longer. With the interest in cricket receding like an outgoing tide, Jack Steele put away the bails and wickets and asked how many would be interested in starting a rugby sevens program.

  Elections

  Annabelle Bell-Atkinson started a bit of a flurry when she claimed in a letter to The Tidal Times that the absence of an elected governing body in Spinner’s Inlet was a vacuum to be filled, “and as everyone is aware, nature abhors a vacuum.”

  The letter received a number of responses, including one from Finbar O’Toole that stated, “There is no such thing as a vacuum in nature because if there were such a thing, all the stuff around it would fall in and fill it.”

  However, Finbar conceded that there was merit in Miss B-A’s argument, given that Spinner’s Inlet is a “disorganized geopolitical unit,” with most of the powers over its existence vested in the Islands Trust, a group that did not include “anyone from here, or anyone that anyone from here voted for.” He immediately emailed a second, apologetic message to the Times, saying that he had meant “unorganized,” but Silas Cotswold, sensing the potential for hostile letter responses to the first one, ditched it. Silas then wrote an editorial calling for an election to be held for the positions of mayor and four councillors, and named a date four weeks ahead. When it was pointed out to him that he was neither an elected nor appointed official and therefore lacked the authority to determine anything on anyone’s behalf, he referred the critics to Annabelle Bell-Atkinson’s and Finbar’s original letters and said, “Somebody had to take charge, so there you go. If people in this community feel that we need a mayor, that’s what we will have.”

  Campaigning began immediately in emails to the Times, some of it leaning on the need for diversity on the new council, like Gilbert Chen who owned Gilbert’s Groceries. He pointed out that he is third-generation Chinese Canadian, one of whose forebears was made to pay the fifty-dollar head tax more than a hundred years ago to get into the country. Finbar O’Toole responded that while he sympathized with Gilbert’s forebears, the Chinese Canadians had, rightfully, received apologies in both federal and provincial legislatures. However, he could not recall the same being extended by any premier or president to any of his native homelanders for the notices that used to appear in establishments in eastern Canada and in the United States stating “Help wanted. No Irish need apply.” The two then repaired to the Cedars pub where, after a couple of beers, Gilbert volunteered to start a petition on behalf of any Celts who still felt overlooked. Then he went to the bar, brought back two pints of perfectly poured Guinness and a brace of Jameson shooters, and declared, “Sláinte!” When they left the Cedars, arms linked, Gilbert suggested that Finbar set a precedent by showing up on time the next day, one of the two days a week that O’Toole drove Gilbert’s delivery van.

  Samson Spinner declared for mayor, as did Annabelle Bell-Atkinson. Samson’s emails and posters billed him as a “luminary of the non-Indigenous First Families of the Inlet” and “inheritor and guardian of their traditions.” Annabelle Bell-Atkinson questioned just how much light Samson shed on anything. She said that she was currently exploring through a DNA sample sent to Ancestry.com the possibility of an Indigenous connection in her family that, if it came back positive, would make her “part of this precious land” and thus qualified to be an overseer. She added that any traditions that needed protecting should amount to more than Samson’s organizing and serving behind the cash bar at the annual Fall Festival and supervising the repainting of the Legion Hall.

  The race for mayor thickened when Evelyn Spinner, née Plummer, joined in. She explained that someone who was First Nations could just as easily qualify for First Mayor. Silas Cotswold drew a load of mockery and the word “chewvanist” was spray-painted on his front window when he asked in print if Evelyn perhaps meant First Mayor-ESS. No one could be certain of the tagger’s identity, but the quality of the spelling attached suspicion to O’Toole and his frequent boasts of having achieved all that he had in life despite having not gone beyond Grade 6.

  But Evelyn’s candidacy was short-lived. She withdrew when her husband, Jackson, showed her an impressive list of guests who had already booked and paid in advance for accommodation at their new B & B—first named J & E’s and shortly thereafter renamed E & J’s. They had built the B & B adjacent to their marina and were due to have a “grand opening, complete with celebrities” in a few weeks. Jackson asked her who she thought might do the beds and breakfasts and such, because somebody had to look after the boats and people who wanted to rent them. And had she got the celebrities lined up yet? Evelyn said the Vancouver mayor had said he would be at his holiday cabin that day and might come by.

  Others declared for the top seat. The aforementioned Finbar O’Toole, whose claim that he was the Inlet’s “Master of All Trades Handyperson” was rarely supported by any evidence of completed—or even started—projects, said he could, with a complex reorganization of his calendar, manage sufficient time to handle the duties of mayor, and he wondered how much the job would pay, and whether it would be a union position with pension and other benefits.

  Sheila Martin, retired secondary school English teacher, whose daughter Julie Clements was the elementary school principal, posted her entry with a reminder that she knew just about everything about everyone in the community who had gone through the secondary school and her English classes in the past thirty years. In a pre-election interview, Cotswold queried if that was meant as some kind of threat. Sheila smiled.

  After getting permission from their aunt Annabelle, who figured it might be an option for keeping things in the family, the Bell-Atkinson geeks jumped in for mayor, saying it was time that Spinner’s Inlet stopped being a backwater of technology. That a mayor should be someone conversant with information technology and artificial intelligence, fluent in advanced communications, who knew the difference between kilobytes and kilograms, and would be able to combat any cyber-meddling by who knows whom, aimed at influencing the election results. Silas applauded the presence of such qualified candidates, until a candidacy
form was ruled to be a duplicate, but no one, including the geeks, was certain whose it was, so they were both ruled ineligible.

  One entrant just beat the deadline set by Cotswold. Randolph Champion declared that he represented the under-represented, the repressed, the common man (and woman), and worldwide economic inequality. He claimed that he had been one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street in 2011, the World Trade Organization riots in Seattle before that (he had protest signs and placards in his garage that could be real, or not), and because of his background had regularly been refused employment by “the usual suspects in the ranks of capitalism,” who, by rejecting him were both “perpetrating and prolonging pre-existing prejudices.” No one could recall any employment that Randolph had applied for in the three years he and his wife and three offspring had lived in the Inlet.

  “Let democracy show us the way,” his poster ended.

  “Or the door,” an anonymous hand added.

  Charlie Wilson started running a book, offering odds ranging from even money on Samson and Sheila to fifty-to-one on Randolph. Constable Ravina Sidhu shut him down, reminding him that gambling without a BC Lotteries Corporation permit was illegal, but she would let it go this time because she was late for the seniors residence, where she had volunteered to help with the bingo—the accumulated prize after five weeks unclaimed was approaching $600.

  The final list of candidates was: Samson Spinner, Annabelle Bell-Atkinson, Finbar O’Toole, Sheila Martin, and Randolph Champion.

  Silas said the four losers would take seats as the councillors.

  Campaigning

  While the Inlet echoed to the exaggerations, invention, and mudslinging that tended to inhabit all political campaigning, Jethro Wallace decided he would pay a visit from his Victoria home. He was curious about the contenders, suspecting that one of them at some future point might possibly challenge his own position.

  Wallace was the Independent MLA for the Islands and some surrounding areas, the bulk of voters of which lived in Spinner’s Inlet. He was a former accountant who had been charged with defrauding clients but was acquitted with the help of a Vancouver lawyer who had himself barely avoided censure by the law society over something concerning client expenses. He ran as an Independent after being rejected as a candidate by all parties in the last provincial election; he won the seat because none of the parties nominated anyone to challenge him.

  The Liberals had held the seat previously, but their woman had been booed and unnerved on the ferry dock after having mistakenly assumed that Spinner’s Inlet people would welcome a mandate appointing them British Columbia “tourism ambassadors.” This would require them to wear badges and wave BC flags whenever the Gulf Queen docked and unloaded tourist groups, and no potential Liberal had generated the pluck to replace her. “In that place? You’re joking,” had been the repeated refrain.

  The NDP had declined after one of their number had attempted a union membership drive among the Cedars pub staff and been escorted back to the ferry by the owner, Matthew Blacklock, who offered certain advice.

  The Greens, given the uncertain tenor of things, chose discretion as the better part of valour.

  Jethro Wallace happened to arrive in the Inlet as the latest edition of The Tidal Times came off the press, with a feature on profiles of the candidates. It was headlined “Personalities and Platforms.”

  Samson Spinner claimed (the aforementioned exaggeration) to have the highest measured IQ of all candidates but would not disclose it as he didn’t believe in belittling others. Finbar O’Toole claimed to be descended from the legendary Irish king Brian Boru, and that subsequent forebears had constructed the Giant’s Causeway (invention), and Randolph Champion marched in front of Gilbert’s Groceries with a placard that claimed “capitalist and profiteer” Gilbert Chen was presenting day-old bread as fresh (mudslinging).

  Sheila Martin said that Samson was at best deluded, Finbar was confusing legend with myth, and Randolph Champion was anyway half-baked.

  Jethro decided that of that group only Sheila might have the right stuff, if she ever entered the provincial fray, and posed a threat. He asked her if she would like to have coffee, and said, “Another time, then,” after she scowled, “What, with you?”

  He was mystified by Annabelle Bell-Atkinson, who had declined any interviews and had made no statements, other than to drive around with her nephews, the geeks, in a spanking new convertible with the geeks holding up a banner carrying the cryptic message “CREAM WILL RISE,” and with glaring ads on the door panels for the Victoria car-sales company that had loaned her the vehicle. It had mistakenly believed she was running for a seat in Ottawa (where they hoped to lobby against luxury-car sales taxes) rather than the mayor’s chair in the Inlet. The geeks glared at Jethro when he threatened to approach, and he retreated.

  Silas Cotswold had arranged an all-candidates meeting at the community hall. Jethro offered to emcee it. Cotswold, ever alert to any possibility of political advertising money, but also aware that Jethro’s budget as the lone Independent in the legislature would barely let him rent a cellphone, said the MLA could do it. But he added that he wanted no partisan comments from Jethro and was reserving the right to step in if things became awkward. He gave Jethro a list of the five contenders with a brief bio on each.

  The MLA received the obligatory derision due a politician, which he seemed to think was meant in good humour, when Silas introduced him, and there was uniform jeering as Jethro introduced the candidates one by one. The supporters of each were fairly balanced with opponents, and an equal amount of applause and boos ensued when platforms were presented.

  Randolph Champion wore a tatty placard that said, “DOWN WITH THE ELITE. POWER TO THE PLEBS.” An audience member asked him when he was going to get a job and pay taxes, like all the other plebs in the community. Randolph said that taxes were nothing but a further burden on the poor and that he would deal with that issue once he took office, and he shook a raised fist toward the interlocutor. The audience response was not something that could be thought of as approval.

  Jethro stood and offered appreciative applause as Randolph plodded off the stage. He was alone in doing so.

  Finbar O’Toole was next, and he opened with an ingratiating nod and smile before breaking into a mournful and reedy version of “Galway Bay,” or at least the first verse, after which Jethro jumped up and asserted himself by loudly ruling Finbar out of order for inserting music into the debate. Silas Cotswold quietly advised Jethro to keep his opinions to himself as he had been instructed to do, adding, “If you call that music …” Then he ruled Finbar out of order.

  Finbar offered an extravagantly knowing smile as he left the platform, and said, “How much longer do we Irish have to be picked on?”

  “How much time y’ got?” From a middle seat.

  Jethro sniggered and received a hard stare from Silas.

  Samson Spinner stepped forward and offered a pointed finger and a scowl at a voice from the back of the hall that said, “For mayor? Really?” The tone was rich in promising what its owner might know that others didn’t, and Samson, despite his seeming confidence and his generally recognized reasonably good character, reacted like those of us who, when presented with the unexpected appearance of a police officer, rake frantically through recent events in a search for any law we might have flouted. His promises of competent and honest practice as mayor thus came off a bit shaky and he left to a low scatter of applause.

  Annabelle Bell-Atkinson, who had remained seated in the audience, now rose and was escorted by the geeks to the platform, each of them waving a giant “Number One” foam glove. Annabelle struck a pose that made many who had known her aunt, the late self-appointed conscience of Spinner’s Inlet, shudder. “Tomorrow is another day,” she intoned.

  “Margaret Mitchell. Gone with the Wind,” Sheila Martin advised loudly from behind her.
r />   “A new day,” Annabelle continued.

  “Celine Dion,” Sheila murmured. “She’s channelling them.”

  A flutter of audience laughter.

  “Two roads …”

  “God, now Frost. And you’re sorry you can’t travel both. We get it. But why don’t you pick one, tell us where you’re going on it, and take those two home.” One of the geeks glowered at Sheila, then checked his watch.

  The Bell-Atkinson trio left and Sheila took the podium.

  “If those who have gone before me had been incumbents, we would question how they ever got elected. It certainly would not have been by people such as yourselves—aware, responsible, and wise. I know that those qualities will prevail when it comes to casting your ballot for mayor. Thank you.” People looked about, searching for repositories of the values Sheila had credited to those present. They nodded and smiled knowingly to each other, then broke into applause as she left the stage.

  Silas Cotswold escorted the MLA down to the ferry.

  Wallace shook Silas’s hand and said, “Finally I understand the kind of people who raised me to public office. I believe I can trust them to do it the next time around.”

  Silas nodded. “Yes, and good luck with that.”

  Two New Guys

  The two young fellows chatted as they walked up the slope from the ferry dock. They stopped at the road, shook hands, and went their separate ways.

  Willie Whittle watched them from the ticket booth as the taller one, with the black hair down to his shoulders, turned and waved. Willie gave him a thumbs-up. As he had walked off the ferry, he had stopped beside Willie and said, “Hi. I’m looking for a family called Spinner.”