by Jim Stark
He sighed, and looked quietly out at the wilderness that was the Whiteside estate. Canada was beautiful, once you got out of the cities. Mottled mounds of pewter rock broke out of the bush here and there, unmoving hippo backs sprinkled with shiny, lime-green mosses, gray and yellow lichens and ground-hugging blueberry patches. Trees and scrub held sway almost everywhere, but it would be many more millennia before the Canadian Shield would surrender those islands of granite to the roots of a mere birch or pine.
It occurred to Victor that at one time all this was molten, red hot, and gurgling. The Gatineaus were the oldest mountain range in the world, he recalled learning in school. We've come a long way, he thought.
"So, Helen, tell me about this lodge that I'll be living in."
"You'll see it in a few minutes,” she said. “There are four security perimeters around it. Patriot has the ability to protect the Whiteside family from every conceivable danger—even from out on the lake, if need be—so you don't have to worry about being safe out there. That's why the Patriot crowd refers to it as the ‘Wilson Lake Bubble.’ You won't see those security installations, but they're there. Trust me. We call this ‘Whiteside Highway,'” she added with a smile, meaning the primitive dirt tracks with the strip of last year's yellow grasses in between. “It's about three miles from the manor to the lodge."
Victor looked at her doubtfully. “Three?” he repeated.
Helen laughed heartily, from the gut. “Make that two miles. I was just testing, Victor. When Mr. Whiteside told me last night about your ability to detect lies, well ... frankly, I didn't believe him."
"Yes you did,” asserted Victor.
"Jeeze, I didn't mean to lie,” she said. “I guess I ... did believe him. What does that say—uh—about me, when I—"
"Hey, everybody does it,” said Victor. “No need to be embarrassed,” he added, with too little conviction.
"I ... guess,” conceded Helen.
They rode in silence for a bit; Victor staring at the bush and the rocks, Helen with a brain full of dirt road, struggling to cope with the words her passenger had just spoken.
Victor knew the stats: research showed that, including the smallest misdemeanors, the average person told about two hundred lies per day. Absolutely astonishing, he thought, even if most of those were known to be harmless little white lies, or social lubricants. He considered sharing this bit of trivia, but decided against it. “Do you think the world can handle the truth?” he asked out of the blue, looking directly at Helen.
"I honestly don't know,” she said as they bumped along, jiggled along. “I guess we're going to find out pretty soon, and ... I imagine you'll go down in history as the man who posed that question."
"I suppose,” said Victor wistfully, “although I'd rather be the guy that answered it.” He reflected on his wish and decided not to tell Helen about some of the conclusions he'd reached in the last twelve years ... at least not yet. But why not right now? He reproached himself silently, and that was enough to change his mind.
"If I had to guess, I'd have to say that the world will not have an easy time of it, and will suffer terribly from the loss of illusion. For a long time, I had serious doubts as to whether I ought to tell anyone about my ... ability. It was only when I realized my life was in danger that I made up my mind to come out of the closet. I concluded that I had no choice, and I was right, wasn't I?"
Helen's stony silence seemed a reluctant endorsement of that grim assessment. With the aid of his special insights, Victor had come to know more than he ever wanted to know about the impoverished state of the human spirit. He gathered that Helen held a similarly bleak opinion, based no doubt on many years of watching grown men—well, mostly men—gnaw at each other's hindquarters in the pursuit of fortune and power, the modern equivalent of what used to be called happiness. He turned his attention back to the twin dirt tracks ahead. The trees overhung for a stretch, and the midday sun hardly took notice of the naked branches.
"This must be spectacular with the leaves filled in,” he said, “or in fall, with reds and yellows overhead, and on the forest floor."
He had particularly enjoyed the ride from the city of Gatineau out to the estate the previous evening. He had enjoyed meeting Randall and Doreen and their children—and Lucinda, the old brown maid, with her blinking eyes—and Helen, of course—and Cam O'Connor, sort of. These social contacts were a daring departure for a committed social hermit, and he had coped. But he needed time in his own place, to unwrap himself from a frightened, dismal past, to recreate himself for a different future, hopefully a much better future. Whiteside Lodge was his for as long as he wanted it, for as long as necessary, and he wondered at the changes that he might go through out there.
"People scare me,” he said, without turning to look at Helen. He didn't particularly care what she thought of this unsolicited statement. “I think I like dogs best,” he added.
"Yeah, me too!” said Helen.
He looked at her, and waited. She caught his eyes, and then she burst out laughing and slapped the steering wheel with an open palm. “I did it again, didn't I?"
Victor allowed himself to laugh. “This ability of mine does solve a whole lot of problems,” he chuckled, “but ... like in that old Jim Carrey movie, Liar, Liar ... it also creates a few new ones. When I was driving for Blue Line, my fares would lie to me all the time, and about the weirdest things. Of course I had to develop some pretty good tricks so they wouldn't realize that I could tell when they were lying."
He was still looking at Helen, wondering what the next eye contact would reveal about her reactions, but she seemed content to concentrate on her driving and let him natter away. It occurred to him that he didn't know a single soul on the planet who gave a fiddler's fuck what he thought or said or believed ... not a blessed soul. He'd been too busy and too terrified to cultivate a circle of friends, to construct a life, like other people. But that was then and this was now. His work was done, successfully—the solo part of it anyway—and now he could ... well, he could do and say and think whatever he damn well pleased!
"I haven't had sex in years,” he blurted out, “ever since I acquired this skill. Does that surprise you?” He waited, but Helen was not inclined to take the bait, especially since silence now appeared to be a valued safe haven, a hiding place from Victor's uncanny talent.
"Every time I meet a woman that interests me,” he continued, “I see right through her pretences, you know? I end up feeling sorry for her after the first few serious lies, like she's some kind of mental defective, especially when they have no idea that their lives are dishonest and empty. That's the part that hurts most, when they don't even know they're full of shit. Talk about a turn-off!"
Helen guided the jeep along Whiteside Highway, easing over bumps and boulder-tops as best she could, studiously declining to respond to Victor's apparent need to bare his soul. She was just beginning to understand the man. It was obvious that his life had been profoundly affected by his ability to detect lies, and not always for the better. Many lives—maybe most lives—would be changed by this taxi driver, and she wondered if her own life would be thrown into chaos, personally and professionally. Will I weather this storm?
After a few moments of silence, she decided to open up a bit, if only because her passenger could find out anything he wanted anyway.
"I've got a boyfriend,” she said. “Roy Taggart. He's in the RCMP ... heads up the Commercial Crime Division. As soon as I learn this trick of yours, I'm going to find out if he's been faithful to me."
"You ... really want to know?” asked Victor.
"Oh yeah!” said Helen emphatically. “If I find out that he's been fooling around, it would be a major bummer, but I think it would be worse if he was fooling around and I didn't know."
"Well ... okay,” said Victor.
Again, there was no conversation for a bit. Helen found that she was enjoying herself, and her curiosity was burning out of control. “Am I ... an honest person?”
she asked nervously.
"Say it as a statement,” instructed Victor.
"I am a ... basically honest person,” pronounced Helen, apprehensively.
"True, I'm relieved to say,” smiled Victor ... by which he meant, but didn't specify, that it was true that she believed that to be true of herself—not quite the same thing. “Me too,” he said. “In fact I never lie any more, ever, about anything. I used to lie all the time, exactly like everybody else—mostly harmless stuff, you know, but now I can't even lie to myself."
It was hard for Victor to decide how fast to go at this new reality with this very new person ... well, new to him ... but he thought he'd move a bit further and see how things unfolded. “It's funny. Everybody hates it with a passion when somebody lies to them or about them, but these same people will fib their arses off if it serves some selfish purpose and if they think they probably won't get caught. There's not too many of us ‘basically honest’ types around, I'm afraid.” He used fingers in the air to put the quotation marks around the words “basically honest."
It occurred to Victor that his search for an honest human being was over. He had Helen, who seemed willing to strike up a friendship of some sort. And there was Randall Whiteside, Senator Cadbury, maybe Cam O'Connor, and surely there would be others, perhaps even a female of the species ... an eligible female. Buds were already appearing on some trees, and it seemed to Victor that this day was like a new beginning, a case of life imitating nature, and a personal springtime for him. He was safe, and he was free, free to be himself, free to say what was on his mind, free to converse with people who were worth conversing with. The isolation was finally over, and yet he found himself feeling oddly reluctant to give it up, to place his trust in anyone.
"People like us,” he said, “those of us who have no real interest in being dishonest ... we make up maybe ten or fifteen percent of humanity. There's another ten or fifteen percent, the bona fide scoundrels of this world, men and women who know they're scum and just don't have a problem with that. They'll be out of business, I suppose, but they'll find a way to cope. I think the problem will be with the seventy or eighty percent in the middle, the people who have no idea where the lies end and reality begins. The shrinks are going to have a grand old time sorting those people out...” He paused for a couple of seconds while a delicious thought passed through his mind. “Of course, it'll be a hell of a lot easier for the shrinks once their patients can't bullshit them any more."
Helen let herself enjoy that thought, and then she smiled inwardly at the prospect of her boyfriend's mother, her would-be mother-in-law, going to her grossly overpriced psychiatrist only to be told that she was perfectly normal, except for an insatiable desire to feel sorry for herself.
"So, you like dogs better than people?” she said.
"Samoyeds especially,” said Victor. “Sammies, as the owners like to call them. I've got two now, Snowball and Kodiak. I keep them at a kennel, out in the country, north of Carp, on the Ontario side of the river. It belongs to friends of mine, Nancy and Tom Ferguson ... well, sort-of friends. I've been too much of a goddam hermit to have real friends. I don't see them much. It would be terrific if...” He stopped to consider his position. “Helen, would it be okay for me to have them out to the lodge?"
"Who?” asked Helen impishly. “The dogs or the Fergusons?"
"Both,” laughed Victor. “The Fergusons for a visit, the dogs to stay."
"Victor, you're rich now, or you soon will be,” she said. “You don't have to ask for stuff. You just say what you want and bingo, it gets done. Can you live with that?"
"No,” said Victor.
"Liar,” laughed Helen.
The jeep came over the last hill, and the lake threw a skift of second-hand sunspots through the leafless trees. Victor saw the shake-shingled roof of the grand log building that would be his digs for the foreseeable future, and as they traversed the last hundred yards, he sighed. This was exactly the kind of spot a rich guy should own. It was perfect.
Helen buzzed open the garage door and parked. “Not too shabby?” she asked.
The ground was tan with last year's pine needles. Victor walked out of the garage and breathed in the smells of melting snow, rotting leaves, and new shoots bullying their way through the earth, towards the sun. This is better than a Thomson painting, he mused. This is the real McCoy.
On the front of the lodge, there was a lower verandah with an elevated second-floor deck on top, facing west. “That'll be so nice in the evenings,” he said, looking up.
South of the lodge, a rocky point jutted into the water. Directly in front of the lodge was a dock, and two boats, the larger of which was called Ms. Adventure—practically a yacht, considering the modest size of the lake. Victor hadn't been fishing since he was a child, and he resolved to catch the next sunrise from the mists of Wilson Lake. “There's fish in there?” he asked.
"The whole lake is within the estate,” explained Helen, “and yeah, there's all kinds of fish. Mr. Whiteside doesn't come here that much any more, but Doreen and the girls love it. Michael comes out now and then, but he's got his own little hideaway cabin on the far shore. No cell phones allowed, no TV, no radio, and no Patriot agents within five hundred yards. His rules. You can barely see Michael's dock ... just to the left of that tallest stand of trees across there,” she said, pointing.
"He likes his privacy, eh?” said Victor as he stretched his vision to catch the distant dock.
"He spends a lot of time there when he's not in school—with his girlfriend,” she said. “Becky's a great kid. The boats are yours to use, by the way. The keys are left in them. The jeep too. There's three staff at the lodge. They're brought in from the manor every morning at seven, leave at six. Of course you can adjust that stuff to suit yourself. You're basically on your own, Victor ... as much as you want to be, that is. Anything you want, just ask. You want the tour?"
In the next hour, Victor was introduced to the cook, a pear-shaped Frenchman by the name of Noel Lambert, the green-overalled groundskeeper, Bill Townsend, and the housekeeper, Winnifred Jopps. He had to make a mental note of their names. He was terrible at names; used to have to write every one down when he was driving cab. Noel Lambert, Bill Townsend, Winnifred Jopps, he repeated silently. I'll get to know them better later, maybe more than I'd like ... although the housekeeper, Winnifred, seems kind of sweet, and she's about my age, and she has no wedding ring on...
He was shown all sixteen rooms of the lodge, including the huge living room with the bearskin rugs and the huge stone fireplaces at either end. Then he was shown the hidden seventeenth room, with its entrance tucked below the basement stairs: the Whitesides’ private fallout shelter, vintage Cold War I. It accommodated thirteen people, he learned, and had a three-month supply of every essential the residents might need. There was an operations room with two communications systems, two gas-powered generators, and an array of tools ... and guns. In the living area there were two televisions, a CD system, a collection of games, toys, books, and two computers. There were six tiny bedrooms and one large one, a kitchen, a bathroom, a walk-in freezer, a storage room, even a mini-hospital. Victor was given a small card with the five-digit combination to the heavy, windowless door of the shelter. “Just in case,” said Helen. “Keep it in your wallet, and keep your wallet on you—that's a rule here—since 1954—since before Randall was born."
Outside, there were four canoes on a log rack. Beside the dock, near the water's edge, was a very large boathouse, also constructed of log, varnished to perfection, with a roof of black shingles. The two boats were already in the water—the building now contained three ATVs, six snowmobiles and a hovercraft, and every conceivable bit of camping and fishing gear. Victor then walked south with Helen, to the rocky point, and looked at the man-made sandy beach where generations of Whitesides had spent happy hours since before the Great Depression. In a cove to the north of the lodge was a half-hidden hangar with a floatplane inside, he was told. A pilot was on
call, he was also told.
"Wealth is all it's cracked up to be,” he said at the end of the tour.
Helen told Victor she had some important calls to make, forgetting for a moment that her new friend would see through any ruse. She suggested that he do some fishing, or go for a walk or ... something. She probably wants to call her boyfriend, thought Victor, the big-shot RCMP guy who may or may not be fooling around on her.
The dock was forty yards long and six yards wide ... more of a pier, really. It felt solid enough to withstand a tidal wave, or World War III. Out at the end was a bulbous rectangle, twenty yards square, with a red-and-white target painted on it. “That's for the helicopter,” Helen had explained earlier.
Victor checked out the larger motorboat, a splendid, masculine craft with a ninety-horsepower outboard and every gadget and bauble available. He walked to the end of the dock and sat down, dangling his feet just over the flapping surface of the water. He'd never doubted that his life would come to something like this, even though he never thought it would take so long for him to “arrive.” In a way, he regretted not having taken the initiative a few months earlier, but he had to be absolutely certain that his discovery was ready, and that he himself was ready.
He felt a need to celebrate, and decided to spend his first post-hermit hours right where he was. He walked back to the “shed"—apparently that was what the humongous boathouse was called—and got a fishing rod, the tackle box, and a net. “I am gonna snag supper,” he said aloud.
As he clomped back out the length of the graying dock, he glanced back towards the lodge to make sure that he had this small section of the world to himself. For the past several years, he'd been testing himself by saying his thoughts out loud when he was alone. He usually laughed when he found that he was lying to himself, fooling himself. It was a bizarre technique, but it worked, and that practice had gradually liberated him from the debilitating human tradition of self-deception. The only problem was that speaking his thoughts aloud might land him in a psychiatric unit if he did it openly.
