The Smoke Jumper

by Nicholas Evans

  There was one more tray of food left in the kitchen, and while Julia was on her way to fetch it, Donna came running through the front door. Ed had posted her at the end of the driveway to keep watch.

  ‘Does he still drive that old Chevy?’ she said.

  ‘I guess. A pickup, pale blue.’

  ‘That’s it. He’s coming.’

  Donna ran out and told everyone and Julia followed with the tray and helped her hide behind the drapes. She went to stand beside Ed.

  ‘Where’s my guitar? Julia?’

  ‘Don’t panic. I’m right here.’

  ‘I’m not panicking.’

  She handed it to him and he looped the strap over his shoulder and lightly touched the strings to make a final check on the amplifier.

  ‘Hank? Have you guys got that banner ready?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Okay, smoke jumpers. Stand ready.’

  They all froze and after a few moments heard Connor’s truck pulling up in the driveway, then the clunk of the car door and footsteps on the gravel.

  ‘Jeez, Hank, it’s your mother-in-law,’ Chuck whispered and everyone told him to shush.

  There was a knock on the front door and a long pause.

  ‘Hello?’

  At the sound of his voice, Julia felt something quicken within her.

  ‘Hell, no, it’s that old girlfriend of yours. She’s got a gun!’

  ‘Shhhh!’

  She could hear his footsteps coming into the living room now.

  ‘Ed? Julia?’

  Donna nodded from her spy hole and Julia touched Ed on the shoulder. And on cue he made the guitar howl and launched into the Jimi Hendrix version of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (quite why, Julia had no idea). Hank and Phil, on chairs either side of the doorway, unfurled the banner. Julia had written ‘Welcome Home Connor’ on it in red and blue glitter-paint and dotted it with silver stars. And suddenly there he was below it, wearing his old cowboy hat and giving everyone that slow grin of his and shaking his head. His blue eyes scanned the faces and found hers and stayed.

  Ed stopped playing and everyone cheered and gathered around him.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ he said. ‘You guys are harder to shake off than a tick on a dog’s backside.’

  ‘That makes you the asshole, cowboy,’ Chuck said.

  ‘Hey, Chuck, how’re you doing? Hank, Donna . . .’

  He shook hands and hugged everyone, leaving Ed and Julia until last. Finally he came smiling toward them. She noticed he was limping a little.

  ‘Julia, who is this weird dude you’re standing next to? I mean, is this Rockin’ Rudy in person or what?’

  ‘My man.’ Ed put his fist to chest.

  ‘Hearts of fire!’ They high-fived and Connor took off his hat and the two friends hugged each other.

  ‘You sly sonofabitch,’ Connor said. ‘“Just come on over for a little supper.”’

  He planted his hat on Ed’s head and turned at last to Julia and she knew there was something different about his face although she couldn’t work out what. He was thinner and his eyes seemed deeper set.

  ‘Hi, Connor. Welcome home.’

  ‘Hell, it’s not as if I’ve been gone that long.’

  ‘It just seems like it.’

  They put their arms around each other and she felt his hands grip her back and hold her firmly for a moment and all the breath seemed to leave her lungs. She knew she should say something light and funny but even if she could have found the right words, she had lost the power to utter them. She worried that her feelings might be obvious to the others and quickly let him go and hooked her arm under Ed’s.

  ‘Just look at the pair of you,’ Connor said. ‘And look at all this.’ He gave a sweep of his arm. ‘The river down there, apple trees, the roses and all. You got your own little Garden of Eden here.’

  ‘Julia as Eve, I can buy,’ Hank Thomas said. ‘But if that’s Adam, I’m Bambi’s mom.’

  ‘In those shades he looks more like the serpent,’ Donna said.

  ‘Here, Donna,’ Ed said. ‘Have an apple.’

  The banter went on and grew cruder and Julia dragged Chuck away to the barbecue and told him to get the meat going and then went inside to fetch the champagne. When she came out again they were all teasing Connor about his ‘war wound’ but he was giving as good as he got, spinning a story which she only partly caught but seemed to involve him single-handedly taking on the entire Serbian army. Ed opened the champagne and when all their glasses were charged he proposed a toast. And as Julia uttered his name with the rest of them and drank his health, Connor’s eyes again settled on hers and stayed and she had to look away.

  Connor watched her as she walked ahead of him up the stairs, watched the way her hips moved inside her dress and how she trailed her left hand with its plain gold wedding band on the banister. The light outside was fading and the skin of her bare shoulders was dark against the pale blue of the dress. She looked more beautiful than ever, even than on those lonely nights when he’d lain awake listening to the shell fire and thinking of her. Even more beautiful than she did in the picture that he always carried in his billfold, the one Ed had taken of the two of them on the day they went climbing. The one in which they were smiling at each other and looked, for all the world, like a proper couple.

  Ed had put some Bob Marley on the stereo in the hope that people might start dancing, but everyone was enjoying sitting and chatting out on the deck and on the grass below. Julia had lit candles out there in glass sleeves and set some more in the trees and everything looked magical. Connor had asked if he could take a look at the house and so she was giving him the tour. They’d started out in her studio in the barn and she’d gotten embarrassed when he told her how much he liked her new paintings. Now they were back in the house. Everyone else was still outside.

  As she reached the top of the stairs, she turned to look at him. He hoped that she hadn’t caught him looking at her hips that way.

  ‘It’s a great place,’ he said clumsily.

  ‘Yeah. It works real well for us. Though it’d be easier for Ed if we lived in town.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Oh, you know, he could be more independent, find his own way around more. He has a map of Missoula in his head, whereas out here it’s all new and . . . well, kind of riskier, I guess is what I mean. Not that it stops him doing things, mind.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Like the other day. This summer we’ve been running together. The trails are pretty good and he knows them by now and when I’m with him it’s perfectly safe. Well, one evening last week, I’ve been into town, I’m driving up the gravel road out there, coming around the corner and there’s this, like, apparition, in an orange hunting vest, in the middle of the road, running right at me. Guess who. He’s got his cane out in front, sweeping it from side to side, and this isn’t some gentle little jog. He’s going like flat-out.’

  Connor laughed. He loved the expressive way she used her hands when she was telling a story like this. He figured it must be the Italian in her.

  ‘So I stop the car and he comes running right up to me and hits the front of the Jeep with the cane and stops with his hands on the hood and do you know what he says? He says, “Well, that’s a dumb place to park!” I mean, Connor, what can you do with the guy?’

  ‘Keep him in a cage or something.’

  ‘I tell you, one day. Did he tell you his latest plan?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Rock climbing. He took this course down in Colorado where they teach blind people to climb. When your leg’s better he wants the three of us to do that same peak, you know? Where we took all those pictures of each other?’

  ‘Sounds great. Give me a week and I’m up for it.’

  She cocked her head to one side and put her hands on her hips.

  ‘You know what? You’re as bad as he is.’

  They smiled at each other for a moment, Bob Marley singing away downstairs, te
lling everyone not to worry, everything was going to be all right. Julia switched on the landing light and he wished she hadn’t. The twilight was more intimate.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you the rest.’

  There were three bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms was half stacked with unpacked boxes, the other half taken up with weights and a bench where, Julia told him, Ed worked out each morning. The second room was prettily decorated with yellow wallpaper and a dark blue quilt with a towel neatly folded upon it and Julia said this was where he would be sleeping tonight, if that was okay. He said he hadn’t figured on staying over and she looked genuinely upset so he said he would, if she was sure it was convenient. She gave him one of her schoolmarm looks.

  ‘Connor, it’s convenient. Okay?’

  She showed him the bathroom and lastly led him into the main bedroom. It smelled of her. The bed was set beneath the window and covered in a plain white cotton throw and he imagined her lying there and stored the image in his head. He could tell which side she slept on from the stack of books and the little collection of creams and lotions. There were pegs on the wall where she hung her jewelry and there was a big painting which though he’d seen little of her work he somehow knew was hers. It was like a cave painting of running deer and matchstick men on horses chasing them with spears and bows and arrows and it was painted in earth colors, red and black and orange and amber.

  ‘This must be one of yours.’

  ‘Oh, that. Yeah.’

  She looked embarrassed again and he didn’t know if it was because of the painting or because they were in her bedroom.

  ‘It was just a phase. Something I was playing around with, you know. It doesn’t really work.’

  ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Oh no. I mean, thanks, but it’s not. Really.’

  ‘Ed told me you’re teaching again.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s great. Only part-time, you know. I do three days a week at this little elementary school in Missoula.’

  ‘Teaching art?’

  ‘Uh-huh. But mostly wiping noses and hosing them down after they’ve thrown paint all over each other.’

  ‘Sounds like fun.’

  ‘It is.’

  They stood without speaking for a moment, still staring at the painting.

  ‘He was really worried about you, you know?’ she said.

  ‘We’d hear about all those awful things going on out there, not knowing where you were or anything and we - Ed, I mean, he just got a little worried. Silly, I know.’

  ‘You didn’t get my cards?’

  She laughed. ‘Oh yeah, “Weather terrible, wish you were here.”’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Anyway. Here you are.’

  ‘Here I am.’

  They stared at each other for a moment. Then, suddenly, she gave a little smile, a distancing kind of smile, like a shutter coming down.

  ‘I’d better go and see if everyone’s okay out there.’

  ‘So are the snipers always there watching?’ Ed asked. ‘Just waiting for somebody to cross?’

  ‘You don’t know until the bullet hits you. Some of the side streets off Snipers’ Alley, you can go for days without a shot being fired. Then, bam, somebody gets killed. I guess for the snipers it’s a kind of game.’

  ‘Killing total strangers.’

  ‘Worse than that. Some of these people they’re killing were friends and neighbors before the war. Now they’re just Muslims and fair game. Like they’re not human beings anymore. ’

  They were lying in the grass down by the river, just the two of them. Above the babble of the water, they could hear the others talking and laughing up at the house. Someone had put on one of Ed’s old Doors albums. He had been trying all evening to talk with Connor on his own and eventually had to drag him off down here. For the last half hour he’d been asking questions about Bosnia and picturing in his head the stories Connor told him.

  ‘Do you wear, like, a flak jacket or something?’

  ‘At first I did. But not later on. They’re kind of heavy old things.’

  Somewhere upstream among the cottonwoods a duck cackled in alarm.

  ‘Fox on the prowl,’ Connor said.

  ‘Or a coyote. We hear them yipping up there in the forest some nights.’

  They listened but heard no more.

  ‘You’ve gotten yourselves a great place here.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re real lucky.’

  ‘Have you had a go fishing? Looks like there’s some good spots here.’

  ‘A few times. I had the trees cut back a little so I don’t get myself in too much of a tangle. But, you know, if you can’t stalk them and land a fly on their heads, it takes the fun out of it a little. All I can do is cast into the broken water, let it drift down and hope something takes it. They’re here okay though. Brownies, cutthroat. Bill Robertson, the guy who owns the place over there, hooked himself a three-pound rainbow the other day.’

  As if to make the point, a fish rose somewhere across the water. They both laughed.

  ‘And how’s the music going?’ Connor asked.

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  ‘Well, if I did, I wouldn’t ask.’

  Ed smiled. He didn’t want to talk about it but it seemed unfair not to after the interrogation he’d just given Connor. He sighed.

  ‘Well, to be honest, it’s not going at all.’

  ‘Julia says you play all the time.’

  ‘Oh, sure. I play. I’ve even done a couple of gigs in a bar in town. But I haven’t written anything in over a year. Anything worth keeping, anyhow. I just seem to have . . . I don’t know. Lost it.’

  ‘It’ll come back. You’ve had to learn a whole new way of doing it, I guess.’

  ‘Oh, sure, but that’s not it. I’ve got the best equipment money can buy and I know my way around it. It’s not that. I guess I’ve just had to accept that I haven’t . . . got the talent.’

  ‘Man, you’ve got more talent than anyone I know.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice of you to say it, but you know as much about music as I know about photography.’

  ‘I know you’re good.’

  ‘Connor, do you know how many goddamn musicals I’ve written?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Eleven. And God only knows how many other bits and pieces. And every single one of them has been rejected. Not once, not twice, lots of times. I haven’t had a single thing performed since I left college. And there comes a point when you have to get real. It’s not going to happen. And, in the letters that come back, do you know what I hear now? Embarrassment. It’s the same with my agent - that’s a laugh - my non-agent. He doesn’t even take my calls anymore. And when I do manage to get through to him, I hear the same thing. He’s embarrassed. It’s true. I’ve become an embarrassment. ’

  He could tell from Connor’s silence that the poor guy didn’t know what to say. He reached out and found his friend’s shoulder and held it a moment.

  ‘Do you know how proud I’ve been of you, just going out there and making a go of things? Man, I was proud. That picture of the women? I know it. I know what it looks like. I had Julia describe every single little detail of it and I know how extraordinary it is and I was so proud. And you know what? I was jealous as hell.’

  ‘Ed, I just got lucky. Like I did that time at Yellowstone. I stumbled across a moment and took one good picture. What you’re trying to pull off is a hell of a lot more difficult.’

  ‘Hey, please. Don’t patronize me.’

  ‘Patronize you? Jesus.’

  They sat silent for a while. Ed could imagine Connor shaking his head and staring out across the river. He felt like kicking himself for saying that. It was the first time in ages that he’d allowed himself to be hijacked by self-pity. Up at the house Chuck Hamer was finishing a joke and everybody groaned. Ed reached out and found Connor’s shoulder again. After a moment Connor put his own hand on Ed’s and said he was sorry if that’s how it had sounde
d.

  ‘No, man. I’m sorry. I just find it hard sometimes to hold it all together, you know? Hell, I’ve got so much to be thankful for. I’ve got Julia, this fantastic place. And you know what? I’m a great piano teacher. I used to find teaching a real drag, like it was something I had to do until the musicals clicked through. But now I enjoy it, I really do.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Yeah. It is.’

  He paused. He hadn’t intended telling anyone the true cause of his low spirits. But sitting here with his best friend, he suddenly wanted to share it. He swallowed.

  ‘Did Julia tell you we’ve been trying to have a kid?’

  ‘No. Hey, that’s great.’

  ‘Yeah. In theory. We’ve been trying for almost a year and nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Well, I’m no expert. But that’s not so long, is it?’

  ‘Well, maybe. Anyhow, last month I had this minor problem with my diabetes. No big deal, it turned out that I just needed to increase the amount of insulin a little. But when I was having it checked out, the doctor, who’s a really good guy, you know, up-to-date with all the latest research and things, asked me if we were going to have children. And I said yeah and told him how we’d been trying but it hadn’t happened yet. And I made some stupid joke, like, maybe my sperm were all tired from having to work so hard, ’cos, boy, you know, when I say trying, I mean it. We’ve really been going for it - thermometers, calendars, the whole deal.

  ‘Anyhow, then he asked me about when my diabetes was first diagnosed and if I’d ever had any immuno-suppressant treatment. And I said hell, I don’t know, I was only a little kid at the time, why? And he ummed and aahed and hedged around and finally I forced him to tell me and he said apparently some of the drugs they used in those days had been found to have an adverse effect on fertility.

  ‘So, you can imagine. Right away I call my mom and sure enough she says yeah, I did. I had like a blitz course of these immuno-suppressant things. Seems the doctors thought they might be able to knock the diabetes on the head or something. So I go back to my doctor here, he gets me to jerk off, runs the tests, looking for all these squirmy little Eds swimming around down there under the microscope and you know what? Zilch. Blanks, man. I fire blanks.’