Reparations

by Stephen Kimber

  Despite that, Ward couldn’t help but be impressed, even a little frightened, by all the unexpected things Eagleson did know about people, including himself. Knowledge seemed to be his way of demonstrating his power over others.

  “Do you ever miss living in Eisners Head?” he’d asked him last week, for no reason Ward could figure.

  “Yeah, I guess. Sometimes.” Ward hadn’t told him he was from Eisners Head.

  “Who knows? Maybe someday you’ll go back and get yourself elected as the MLA down there,” Eagleson said, as if it were as simple as deciding to do it.

  Eagleson knew other things, too. Sometimes, he’d slip them into a conversation. Like the time when Eagleson had asked him, again seemingly out of nowhere: “Your father ever get over that thing with Junior Eisner?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Ward said. “It was a long time ago.” What was he supposed to say? That his father harvested a bumper crop of resentment each and every morning? “That thing” didn’t begin to cover it.

  “Junior’s not such a bad guy,” Eagleson said. “Unless you try to start a union on him!” He laughed. Ward laughed too, though he wasn’t sure why. Eagleson could be as disarming as he was charming.

  Ward still couldn’t figure out what Eagleson actually did at the law firm. Or, for that matter, what the firm did. With the exception of McArtney, who seemed always to be in court, the law was the least of the partners’ concerns. Gerry Cullingham was officially listed on the letterhead as counsel to McArtney, Eagleson, Cullingham & O’Sullivan, but Ward had never met him.

  The other two senior partners didn’t appear to practise much law either. Seamus O’Sullivan was the leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, which was currently the Official Opposition in the Legislature. He spent most of his time travelling the province, giving speeches and trying to convince people to vote Liberal again.

  Back in the good old days, which Eagleson referred to as “B.S.”—“Before Stanfield”—O’Sullivan’s and Eagleson’s fathers had been key figures in the last Liberal administration, which, probably not coincidentally, had been presided over by Premier Gerry Cullingham. But that was a long time ago. Robert Stanfield’s Progressive Conservatives had been in power in Nova Scotia for eleven years and seemed destined to hold on for at least eleven more. Everyone, Eagleson confided to Ward, assumed that the new Liberal leader, Seamus O’Sullivan, would just be a caretaker until someone better came along.

  “But then Stanfield took up ski jumping.”

  Eagleson talked like that a lot, assuming you would know what he meant. For once, Ward did. He remembered hearing on the radio once that Stanfield, a balding old man who spoke with what Ward imagined was a drawl, had initially dismissed speculation that he was thinking about running for the federal Tory leadership by saying he’d “rather take up ski jumping,” but then had changed his mind, run and won. His replacement as leader of the provincial Conservatives was an even older and balder guy named Smith. “Smith’s a Smith,” Eagleson had said elliptically. “Bearable. But can Seamus? That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. And if he can’t, well, what then?”

  Eagleson would often burst into this sort of disconnected monologue. Ward wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to answer, so he said nothing, which seemed to work.

  “You’re the one, Ward, old son.” Mr. Eagleson would often stop himself in mid-reverie, look at Ward and repeat those words like a mantra, usually ending with, “Some day,” which he pronounced as if he were saying, “Amen.”

  Eagleson’s role in the law firm seemed to revolve around politics. He spent hours on the telephone talking politics in a booming voice that carried all over the office, usually speaking in a verbal short-hand Ward couldn’t decipher. Eagleson didn’t seem to have any clients, at least not in the traditional sense. The only people who came to see him at his office—almost always late on a Friday morning—were various Liberal members of the Legislature. Ward knew that’s who they were, mostly because Eagleson would introduce him. “I want you to meet the premier after next, Mr. Ward Justice,” he’d say. “Pay attention, this young man may be your boss someday.” The MLAs would smile indulgently but impatiently, too. It was as though they wanted to get in, do their business and get out.

  Ward didn’t know what their business was, just that it never took long. One by one, they’d go inside Eagleson’s inner sanctum, spend fifteen minutes and then slip furtively back out past the receptionist, down the elevator and out the door.

  One Friday morning, before they arrived, Ward was retrieving some papers for another lawyer from Mr. Eagleson’s office. He couldn’t help but notice a half dozen of the firm’s business envelopes on Eagleson’s desk, each bearing the handwritten name of an MLA, each apparently filled with something thick.

  This morning, most of the surface of that same desk was covered by an oversized brown leather suitcase. “Want to see what’s inside?” Eagleson was almost giddy as he flipped the gold latches on the suitcase. “Et voilà, monsieur,” he said with a wave of his hand across its contents. Ward had never seen so much money.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Eagleson announced grandly, “twenty-five big ones. Ever see that much cash money before, Ward?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Impressed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, let’s hope our friend is as impressed.”

  Eagleson said he needed Ward to carry the suitcase “and be my muscle if I need it.” Ward wondered if he was joking. Eagleson was a big man, as tall as Ward but less gangly, and certainly capable of dealing with any sort of physical threat. “Not that I expect any trouble, but you never know,” Eagleson said, adding with the same conspiratorial smile, “Besides, this will be a good opportunity for you to see how things really get done. No time like the present.”

  The suitcase was lighter than Ward had expected but it was big and awkward, and Ward struggled with it as he tried to keep up with Eagleson’s long strides. They walked the four long blocks from McArtney, Eagleson’s offices to the Dresden Arms Motor Hotel. The concierge recognized Eagleson as soon as he walked into the lobby. “Everything just as you requested, sir.”

  “Thanks, as always, Tony,” Eagleson replied, smiling, handing him a two-dollar bill.

  “Want someone to carry that bag for you?” Tony asked. “Looks heavy for the lad.”

  Ward might have taken offence at that but he was exhausted and would have been grateful to have someone take it off his hands.

  “No thanks, Tony,” Eagleson said. “We’ll manage. Eh, Ward? Not too far now.”

  The room was on the third floor and there was an elevator, but Eagleson told Tony they’d prefer to walk. “Don’t get enough exercise any more.”

  Ward followed behind.

  The room offered standard-issue hotel furnishings: a double bed, a framed print of a seascape above the headboard, a long, low dresser on the wall opposite. The television, with built-in rabbit ears, sat on top of the dresser. Huddled in a corner by the window there was a small, round, dark wood laminate table with two chairs. Tony had already placed a forty-ounce bottle of Glenfiddich Single Malt Scotch Whisky, along with two tumblers and two champagne flutes, on the table. A bottle of Mumm’s chilled in a silver ice bucket beside the table.

  “For the celebration,” Eagleson explained, then instructed Ward to put the suitcase on the bed. “And let’s move this table a little closer so I can reach over and flip up the lid.” He thought for a moment. “Don’t undo the latches yet. No point in diminishing the drama.”

  What was going on? All Eagleson had told Ward was that the mayor, a former Liberal Cabinet minister, “wants me to do a little something for him that he doesn’t want to be seen doing himself. Which is okay. I owe him a favour. Now he’ll owe me one.”

  “What do you want me to do, Mr. Eagleson?”

  “You just be here with me, Ward, b
ut discreetly. I don’t want to spook this guy.” He laughed at that, as if at a private joke. “But I do want him to know I’m not alone. In case he gets any ideas.”

  Once the suitcase and the table were arranged to Eagleson’s satisfaction, they sat in silence at the table. After about five minutes, there was a knock on the door. “Places, everyone,” Eagleson said softly, pointing to a spot by the bed where Ward was to stand. Then he got up himself and opened the door.

  “Come in, come in. So good of you to agree to meet me on short notice,” he said, shaking his guest’s hand and ushering him into the room.

  Ward sucked in his breath in surprise.

  “I think you know my assistant here,” he said to the man, not bothering to introduce Ward by name. The man looked at Ward. His face was a mask. Did he recognize Ward? Ward certainly recognized the man. It was Ray’s father, dressed in a dark-blue suit with a white shirt and tie. Except for the fact he was black—and that he carried what looked like a brown paper grocery store bag in his arms—he could have been a lawyer, too, Ward thought.

  Seeing Ray’s father, Ward suddenly felt guilty. He hadn’t gone to visit Aunt Annie like he’d promised. And he hadn’t seen Ray since graduation. Ward still didn’t really understand what had happened to their friendship. Had Ward just naturally outgrown it after they’d started high school and made new friends? Perhaps. Probably. People changed, grew apart. It was no one’s fault. But why then did he feel guilty every time he saw Ray? And why had Ray purposely ignored him whenever they happened to pass each other in the hall? Was he jealous? Resentful? Ward knew lots of the north-end kids he’d gone to Richmond with resented the south-enders. Even Ward had felt that way from time to time. Like the night Billy Henderson drove him home from a school dance. “You really live way up here, man?” he’d marvelled, gawking at the houses like a tourist on an exotic sightseeing expedition. Ward had directed him north on Barrington Street, past the imposing new public housing complex at Maynard Square.

  “It’s mostly niggers in there, right?” Billy asked, eyeing the row houses and apartment towers warily.

  “Nah. Some. Maybe half, I guess,” Ward answered. Ray had so hated even hearing the word nigger that it was like fingernails on a blackboard to Ward, too. Ward wanted to stop Billy—tell him to say Negro, or maybe black, the word the civil rights types were using now—but he didn’t.

  “Fuck, man, this is the road to Africville, isn’t it,” Billy said suddenly. “Can we drive through?”

  “Nah, I’m tired,” Ward answered. “I just want to go home and go to bed. Besides, there’s nothing to see there any more. It’s almost all torn down.”

  “My dad says they’re gonna call the new project on Gottingen Street ‘Niggerville.’ Niggerville Public Housing. Isn’t that a laugh?”

  Ward had laughed along with Billy, a short, sharp, go-along laugh. He wanted to tell Billy to shut the fuck up, but he didn’t. It was easier to let it pass. Just as it was easier not to stop Ray in the hall at school, ask him what he was so pissed about. Maybe avoidance just ran in the family, Ward thought. Ever since graduation, his father had done his best to avoid confronting Ward about his relationship with Ray, even though he had to know now that Ward hadn’t obeyed his instructions to “stay away from the coloureds.”

  Now Ward stole another glance at Ray’s father. But he wasn’t paying Ward any mind. His gaze was fixed on Mr. Eagleson.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Carter,” Eagleson said, indicating one of the chairs at the table. He sat down himself in the chair closest to the bed. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “A little early, isn’t it?” Carter answered, placing the paper bag on the floor beside him.

  Eagleson laughed. “Never too early for a wee dram of Glenfiddich, my friend. Ever try it?”

  Ray’s father shook his head.

  “You must, then,” he said, taking the bottle and unscrewing the cap. “Single malt. Made from the best barley grown in the purest air on the banks of the River Fiddich, deep in the heart of the Scottish Highlands. I saw it with my own eyes last summer.” He filled the two tumblers half full, slid one across the table to Lawrence Carter, picked up the other in his hand, sniffed the glass, smiled and offered a toast. “To perfection,” he said, taking a long swallow. Ray’s father took a sip, then replaced his glass on the table. His eyes never left Eagleson’s face.

  “You wanted to see me,” Lawrence Carter said.

  “I did, Mr. Carter, I did.” Eagleson smiled. “I like a man who gets to the point.” He paused then, took a shorter swallow of the whisky, held his glass up to the light and swirled the golden liquid around. “Perfection,” he mused again, then put the glass back on the table. Ray’s father, who had not taken a second sip, kept his focus on Eagleson.

  “So . . . as you know very well, Mr. Carter,” Eagleson began finally, “the City has been buying up properties in Africville as part of a major urban renewal initiative whose purpose is to relocate the residents to better quality housing, where they can get full access to City services. So far, this project has been very successful. Indeed—again, as you well know—all of your friends and neighbours have accepted the City’s generous offers for their buildings and property, even in those cases—cases very much like your own—where the residents have no legal claim to the land on which those buildings sit. Now, the City would be within its rights to expropriate your house and take back the land on which it sits with no compensation whatsoever.” He paused to allow that to sink in. Ward marvelled that Eagleson could be so clear and direct when he chose to be. “The City could do that, Mr. Carter, but it doesn’t want to. That’s why the Mayor has asked me to intercede, to talk to you man to man and find out how we can come to some arrangement that will benefit you and benefit the City, too.”

  He paused again, apparently waiting this time for a reply from Carter. But Ray’s father just kept his gaze fixed disconcertingly on Eagleson.

  “So . . .” Eagleson resumed at last, “I guess the question is simply this: What would it take to convince you to sell, Mr. Carter?”

  “Not interested in selling, Mr. . . . ah, Eagleson. I like it fine where I am.”

  “But all your friends are already gone now, Mr. Carter. I’m sure it must get lonely out there all by yourself.”

  “Nothing wrong with being alone.”

  “No, of course not.” Eagleson was doing his best to be patient. He wasn’t used to dealing with someone who wasn’t interested in dealing. “It’s just that you’re missing out on the City water and sewer services your former neighbours are getting now.”

  “Hard to miss something you never had,” Carter replied. “Besides, the City could have given us all those services where we lived, they had a mind to.”

  Eagleson had been prepared for that. “But, as you know, Mr. Carter, it would have cost the City eight hundred thousand dollars to extend its services to Africville,” he pointed out. “The City just couldn’t afford that. As I’m sure you appreciate, eight hundred thousand dollars”—he said the words slowly, emphasizing the enormity of it all—“is a lot of money.”

  “It is,” Raymond’s father responded evenly. He leaned over and picked up the grocery bag, placed it casually on the table. “But not quite as much as the City has already spent trying to get rid of us.” He pulled a file folder from the bag. “I been reading the City’s financial statements for last year—I can show ’em to you if you want—and they show that the City has already paid more to move us than they claimed it would have cost to give us City services in the first place. Fifteen thousand dollars more. And that don’t include how much you’re going to have to pay to get rid of me. So who says the City can’t afford it.” It was not a question.

  Eagleson did not try to answer directly. “You won’t be very happy when you’re living all by yourself in the only house left in the whole of Africville and you’re surrounded by factories and noise.”<
br />
  Lawrence Carter grinned. It was a triumphant I-told-you-so grin. “I thought the City said this wasn’t about industrial development, Mr. Eagleson. Thought they was just wantin’ to help us coloured folk get a better life.”

  This wasn’t going according to the script Eagleson had written in his head. He poured himself another whisky, slowly took another swallow. A long one, while he tried to think of a smooth segue to the suitcase. He couldn’t.

  “Look, Mr. Carter, I’m going to be perfectly straight with you. I’m trying to help you here but we’ve only got a very short time. The City has authorized me to make you a most generous offer for that small, rundown house you own and the half-acre of land you live on but don’t own. But this offer won’t last forever. Take it or leave it. Understood?”

  “Oh, I understand all right.”

  Ward could feel the tension level in the room rising. The two men had dispensed with their cloaks of pretend politesse.

  Without further preamble, Eagleson reached over and dragged the suitcase closer to him. He used his thumbs to pop the latches and pushed up the lid. Then he turned the suitcase around so Carter could see what was inside.

  “There’s twenty-five thousand dollars in here, Mr. Carter. That’s a lot of money, more than the City has paid for any other single property in Africville, more, I dare say, than you ever made teaching at the Africville School. Am I right?”

  Ray’s father said nothing. His glance flickered briefly over the neatly stacked cash in the suitcase, then returned to Jack Eagleson’s face.

  “I can give you every last one of those twenty-five thousand dollars right now,” Eagleson told him. “You can walk out the door with that suitcase in your hand and do whatever you goddamn well want with the money. It’ll be yours.”

  Almost ceremoniously, Eagleson removed the whisky bottle, both their glasses and the two still-empty champagne flutes from the table, put them down on the floor beside him, then lifted the suitcase, still open, and placed it on to the table facing Carter.