Some Great Thing

by Colin McAdam

  With me it was different. I was busy, sure, I was dreaming, yes, but the one was not unrelated to the other, and I am, after all, Jerry McGuinty. I could do anything.

  An exclusive group of my finest homes. A golf course with an abundance of this grass: fescue. Elegant lines, straight, views of trees, glimpses of sport, a sense of belonging, a great deal of money for the man with my name.

  I know, I know, I agree with you. The suspicion that we can’t have what we dream of is what keeps us dreaming. We know that because we are wise. We didn’t know it then.

  I suspected this golf-course development would be hard to hold in my hand, and the more I suspected that the more I longed to hold it. It was more than a suspicion, too. You saw the letters. I was up against some secret department of powerful nerds.

  Now, maybe the Government wasn’t conspiring to destroy me personally. I’ll admit that. I’m not armed for a revolution at the moment; no camouflage on me, see. But they were up to something with this land. They are always up to something and it’s never something good for the simple folk—like they think I am.

  NINE MONTHS JERRY WORKED. Close your eyes and count to nine. It doesn’t seem like much could change.

  I had forgotten that Kathleen might need some attention. Jerry working in the mornings and then again after school meant no one was around the house. She told me she was feeling better, she didn’t need help, that us two Jerries could feck off with our mollycoddling and our moping moony faces.

  She seemed better, a bit more of her old spirit back. I do remember that she made dinner once, the first time in ages. She burned a couple of things, Jerry tried to help, she pushed him away. She definitely had some strength left. It was still a good dinner.

  She cut herself once, just a little cut on her finger but it bled and bled and bled. I thought that was odd but she just said feck, feck, feck, like it was just a little nuisance. Generally I thought she was getting better.

  But Jerry knew. He was going home a lot, I later learned. He wasn’t looking after her any less than before. Running off from work all the time, every day. She had him scared, I learned, so scared that she could make him do anything. He would run home, then run back to work, run home again, make all his own meals, do everything she wanted.

  He came to work with me in my truck once or twice. Usually he was up even earlier than I was because he wanted to get some good hours in before school.

  “You’re a little nut,” I told him when I was driving him one day. “Why are you working so hard?”

  He has this silence that frustrates me.

  “Seriously, buddy, you’ll wear yourself out. Your career will be over by the time you’re eighteen. You’ll have to retire when your friends are just getting going. They’ll be visiting you in the retirement home before you start shaving, eh?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Seriously. What are your friends doing? Are they working? What do they think?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Maybe we should have your friends over. Who are your friends?”

  “Fuck off, Dad.”

  “OK, buddy.”

  THE GIRLS IN the site office, they say my Jerry’s sweet, makes paper airplanes all the time but does his work. Spells OK, too, they say.

  And Cooper—the only compliment I ever heard from him—he says Jerry’s a good guy.

  Dear Mr. Struthers,

  Re file blah blah

  Please find enclosed the preliminary approval of the water board and Ontario Hydro, as well as a list of concerned investors.

  The required studies will be forthcoming as the seasons permit, blah blah blah

  You know, as the seasons permit!

  I had to pay for these catalogs of leaves and goddamn groundhogs. I had to pay someone to tell the Government that, generally, the winter witnesses an abundance of sleeping groundhogs.

  It turns out that there are birds and trees which might be affected by development.

  Rock my world!

  It also turns out that over the seasons, “There is change, such as erosion, delicately balanced. This is significant,” is what one report said. That was the last sentence of that section of the report, which I spent money on: “This is significant.”

  As opposed to the small number of golf-course architects in the world, these little guys who do environmental studies were Legion.

  “The world is changing.” That’s what the golf-course architect said to me, chewing philosophically. “You can’t just lay things down any more,” he said.

  He was right. But he was also on retainer, so I didn’t want him telling me what I knew. When he talked about his trade he interested me.

  “You don’t golf, Mr. McGuinty, so you might not know this. Golfers don’t want to feel like they’re playing on a suburban street. They don’t want to see houses looking at them all the time. Now, you build houses so you probably do know this: homeowners want to see the golf course. They want to see the grass, the trees, maybe a golfer or two. What’s the solution?”

  Now he’s earning his money.

  “The solution is to put the houses on high banks, have the course lower, put berms and woodlots between the course and the subdivision.

  “And we want it as natural as possible. I think we should have the course looking kind of rugged here and there. So a links-style course with a fair amount of fescue grass.”

  That was the first time I heard that word: fescue.

  “Maybe even some stone fences here and there, and hedgerows. I’ll need to do soil samples to consider drainage. Let’s meet out at the land and I’ll tell you some more. Ever been hit in the head by a golf ball, Mr. McGuinty?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, that’s a very basic thing to keep in mind as well. I’ll come up from Toronto and we’ll have a good look at the land. You can find me somewhere decent to stay, I suppose?”

  So I put him up in a shitty hotel that he complains about, but he comes out to the land with me and he earns his money a bit more.

  “Irrigation and drainage, Mr. McGuinty, are probably the most important considerations in any golf-course development. If we’ve got impermeable clay here or porous soil, we’re obviously going to have stability problems. Some of it might be easy to shift around, as I’m sure you know, and it might help the golf course drain, but you’re going to have to decide whether your development can be supported, especially if we want to raise it above the golf course.

  “Generally speaking, I build a course that I know can withstand the worst storm in any five-year period. I’ll need to know weather patterns, certainly. We’ve got to consider how the houses are going to drain. Having them up high will be an advantage that way too, but you’re going to need pipes, capital P, Pipes, to get the water we don’t want away from the course.

  “Now, there are some natural ponds, which will be good little challenges on the course. We might want even more of them so you can save on pipes. I happen to know some varieties of aquatic plant that can help make healthy ponds out of the drainage—keep the shape of things, settle suspended solids, even control coliform bacteria, Mr. McGuinty.”

  I know this guy bores you but I thought he was as exciting as New York. He was a regular freak, this guy, his feet solidly on the ground but his head in a place I never knew.

  I threw my soul into that development right then.

  And on he jabbered like a Jesus to me. I was so taken that I didn’t notice for a while that there were two strangers about fifty feet away from us, dressed in suits and looking out at the land.

  “Who are they?” I says to my Jesus and he says, “Beats me.”

  And we talk in a guarded way and then decide to leave.

  I tried to get close to them to overhear what they were saying but when I got near, one of them said:

  “Isn’t it a glorious day?”

  And I felt like it was a warning to stay away.

  WHAT A GODDAMN Idiot, with an I as tall as me.

  1

&n
bsp; 2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  A reverse birth, my friend, counting up to disappearance.

  No Espolito feeling this time, just a vat of plastic wood that I forgot in my garage. That’s all that brought me home.

  Kathleen’s getting feisty these days, maybe a little frisky, I thought, so maybe when I’m getting the plastic wood I might pop my head inside the house and see if we can’t be a man and a woman for a minute.

  I go in through the garage, through the laundry-room door, planning on hanging a right to go up to her room.

  But there she is, face down on the family-room floor, a normally spinning chair tipped over on its side lying stiller than it was born for.

  No Edgar this time, just Kathleen on her own looking small and bent, blood in her mouth again.

  Panic? Tears? Ambulance?! Call an ambulance?! Check her pulse?

  Nope.

  I did what your standard lunatic does. I got a bit shaky and went to the kitchen for a tall glass of milk. Nice and cold, coating that taste in my mouth.

  6

  “HELLO, SIMON, it’s Paul Overington calling.”

  “Paul! Good of you to call. You got my letters then.”

  “Yes. What is it you wanted to propose to me?”

  “I think you will like it. Quite a boon for your research, I should think. Are you well?”

  “I am well.”

  “Shall I take you to lunch?”

  “If that’s necessary.”

  “You engineers, eh? Keen sense of what is necessary. Do you call yourself an engineer or a scientist?”

  “Either.”

  “Do you know what a chicken finger is?”

  “I think so.”

  “Meet me for lunch at this place I know and we will have chicken fingers with the house plum sauce and a side of fries. What could be nicer? Strictly business. And then we can go on a little field trip. I would like to show you some land.”

  “SIMON STRUTHERS.”

  “Simon?”

  “Speaking.”

  “It’s Kwyet.”

  “Kwyet!”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi! How . . . everything . . . really? A voice from the past.

  How are you?”

  “Good.”

  “Great. Is everything all right? I don’t suppose I have done something wrong.”

  “ . . . ”

  “Kwyet?”

  “Guilty conscience?”

  “Naturally.”

  “No, I was just calling to say hi.”

  “Are you in town?”

  “No, I’m in Montreal.”

  “How is the studying?”

  “Good. I could still use some help. Final year coming up.”

  “I would be happy to . . . if, if that’s what you mean . . . absolutely.”

  “ . . . ”

  “Kwyet?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Yes, well, everything here is going well, certainly. Something important in the works. Quite important.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes. And how is your mother?”

  “Do you remember that I invited you to Montreal a long time ago?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Would you still like to come?”

  “Of course!”

  “How about four weekends from now? The twentieth. Are you free?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good.”

  “Good! Will you . . . Can I get your address?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Kwyet?”

  PAUL OVERINGTON, an Englishman with English teeth, was overwhelmed by Simon’s idea.

  “A wind tunnel.”

  An awestruck, grateful tone—not one of bland incredulity. Simon’s investigations had told him that the National Research Council had been yearning for a wind tunnel, a huge testing site for aeronautical, military, civic purposes.

  “Not just a run-of-the-mill wind tunnel, Paul.”

  “Really?”

  “It is up to you.”

  They had always pursued the wrong channels. Meanwhile Simon found “wind tunnel” in the Dreambook, buried, with one small “!” penciled next to it.

  “Are you interested?”

  Overwhelmed. It took him a moment to trust Simon, but he was eventually overwhelmed.

  A scientist’s enthusiasm, once underway, can be messy.

  “We have wanted a wind tunnel for years! Years!”

  They had the funding, he said. They had sophisticated plans, but everything had stalled. An adequate site.

  “Something huge, frankly, is what we need, Simon.”

  “Perfect.”

  “I don’t think you understand. Huge.”

  “Fine.”

  “Do you know much about wind tunnels, Simon?”

  “A little.”

  “Let me tell you more.”

  7

  IT WAS ALMOST like a familiar chore, picking her up and taking her to the hospital.

  “She is a very sick lady, Mr. McGuinty.”

  She bit a piece of her tongue off this time, broke one of the same ribs.

  “She is out of her concussion. Was she drinking?”

  “I didn’t see that.”

  “She is a very sick lady, Mr. McGuinty.”

  “I didn’t see that.”

  One interesting thing about a diseased liver, I learned, is that you bleed a lot. Your blood doesn’t clot so well. I thought about the golf-course architect. Maybe he knew some sort of aquatic plant.

  Doctors may not be decent people, but they do interesting things, sure, sometimes. The body. There’s a game. There’s a project. I couldn’t do it, though. Too close to home.

  “She will have to be admitted for a long time, Mr. McGuinty. She won’t be any better tonight. You should go home.”

  HOME, YES. It had been hours. I hadn’t done any work either. And there was Jerry to consider. I had found Kathleen at around ten in the morning. There had seemed to be no point then in getting Jerry from school. He would probably go to work after school, come home late. I could tell him then, at night, what had happened.

  What would I say? I don’t even know what happened. Did she just fall out of the chair? Who made her liver sick?

  On my way home I thought of looking for Jerry, picking him up from the office or one of the sites, but then I figured he would just get worried—I’d make it seem more serious than it was. He wouldn’t want to hear about that happening to his mummy. What did happen to her?

  I got home and sat in one of the other spinning chairs. The tipped-over chair was near the bookshelf—not where it normally was. I went over and picked it up, straightened it out.

  Mummy’s sick again, big guy. That’s all I needed to say. He was growing up, voice changing, but he didn’t need to know everything.

  What was she doing with that chair?

  I saw an ashtray on the floor that I hadn’t noticed. It usually lived on the bookshelf. I picked it up and put it back on the shelf, high up. That’s when I realized she must have been standing on the chair to get something—maybe the ashtray. But she didn’t smoke that much, only on bonfire nights and special occasions.

  I pulled the chair over to the shelf out of curiosity and stood up on it. It nearly had me on my face but I hung on to the shelf. Up there behind our books—Irish Castles, Castles of Ireland— I saw a bottle of vodka. I guess she was after that and she slipped.

  Pretty fuckin goofy, isn’t it? A stash of vodka up there like she was a drunk. Your mummy’s a drunk, big guy.

  “SHE COULD DIE, Mr. McGuinty. I have to mention possibilities.”

  “Yeah, well, she hit her head and she’s out of her concussion. I don’t think it’s that serious.”

  “Sit down, Mr. McGuinty.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Doctor.”

  “Cirrhosis of the liver is life-threatening, sir. If she l
ives she will have a very different life, a very different quality of life.”

  “Speak for yourself there, buddy.”

  I DRINK ALCOHOL these days with pleasure, but there’s usually a sorrow that bites my later sips. I don’t know what else to say. Sometimes there’s nothing sweeter.

  I drank a good dose of whisky that night, I tell you with little significance. Had a spin on the chairs. I woke up at dawn, still in a chair. I called Jerry’s name.

  He must have slipped in while I was asleep. I went up to his room, calling. His door was open, bed was made. He had probably gone out already, the nut.

  I went to the hospital.

  “It’s quite serious, Mr. McGuinty.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Her esophagus is bleeding and the blood is coagulating abnormally. We have to watch her carefully. There are toxins in her brain.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Not yet. Now, you have to listen to me. She is not going to be as you know her. Not for quite some time. Do you know what encephalopathy is?”

  Encephalopathy, cirrhosis, coliform bacteria, chthonic, petty economic, berms, woodlots, fescue. All the spiky words and bumps of blood and shifting mud.

  “I haven’t got a clue what it means.”

  “DID LITTLE JERRY turn up for work this morning?”

  “I didn’t see him. Ask Cooper.”

  “Hey, Cooper, you seen Jerry this morning?”

  “He wasn’t working with me.”

  “Was he in the office?”

  “HI, LADIES. Was Jerry in the office this morning?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “No, I was here first. I turned the lights on. He never comes in before me. But he’s adorable.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he spells OK.”

  “HI, I’M LOOKING for my son, Jerry McGuinty. Can you call him from class?”

  “Our intercom’s not working these days, but I can get him. Why don’t you come with me? Let’s see what class he’s in here. 9G. Come on with me. Oh, actually. No. All the grade nines are on a field trip today. Science Museum. Do you know where that is?”