He had stared at me then for a long time, as though he were in a trance, and when he’d snapped out of it he had seized hold of the bottle and slopped some more whisky into our glasses. And because I had thought he was drunk enough now to tell me what it was all about, I had begun questioning him again. And instead of answering my questions, he had flown into a rage, telling me I was bloody useless and to mind my own business. After that he had gone suddenly quiet, closing up on me, silent and morose, his head in his hands. Once he had muttered, ‘I don’t know what it’s all about and I don’t want to know. They’re bastards, the whole lot of them. They should be put down, like you put down dogs that have got that rabies disease.’
And then suddenly he had looked up at me. ‘Philip. If I don’t do what they tell me, they’ll kill her. I know they will. There’s a lot of money involved, and she and I, we’re just pawns. God in heaven! What the hell can I do?’ And he had beat his fists against his forehead. But he wouldn’t say what it was he had been told to do, and when I asked him if it was a question of the Canadian trees and SVL Timber trying to get him to sell, he’d burst out laughing. ‘If it was as simple as that… Christ! I’d make my peace with the Old Man and sign the whole thing away just to be rid of them. But it isn’t, is it?’ And he had reached for his glass and downed the whole of his whisky in one gulp, and then he had sat there staring at me with a vacant look, sad-eyed and his mind locked away in some dark cavern of its own.
I might be his solicitor and out here of my own free will, but if you’ve rogered a man’s wife and been rumbled, it’s always there, a barrier between you that crops up at odd, unexpected moments. He had just looked at me, not saying a word, then abruptly got to his feet, heading for the gents. After a moment I had followed to find him standing, his tie loosened and holding in his hand a little gold spoon that was hung about his neck on a slender gold chain. He had taken a pouch from his pocket and was dipping the spoon into it, peering forward to see how much he had scooped up, then putting it to his left nostril and snorting it up. He had done it again with the other nostril, then seeing me his eyes had snapped wide open and he had breathed out a deep, contented Aaah! ‘Just to keep me on top, eh?’
‘You don’t need it, surely.’ My voice had sounded very prim.
‘No.’ By then he had been reaching down to unzip his flies.
‘A one-and-one, that’s not very much, but if it holds the high — I just like to keep it going, you see, an’ because I’ve not had any for a couple of months, a one-and-one will do it. Christ!’ He was staring down at himself. ‘And it’ll do that too!’ And he had added, ‘One time Miriam and I used it as an aphrodisiac, but it doesn’t work once you’re snorting regularly.’ He grinned at me over his shoulder. ‘Pity Miriam isn’t here now…’ But then he was concentrating and a moment later he was passing water so it hadn’t lasted long. And afterwards, while he was washing his hands, he had said, ‘Lucky you don’t snort. That’s all I’ve got now, just a few grams to last me till my ship comes in.’ And he had burst into that high-pitched laugh of his, as though he’d said something funny.
I wondered whether he had got himself involved with some dope pushers, but he shook his head. ‘Pushers?’ His eyes had sprung very wide as he stared at me in the mirror, all the time running a comb through his bushy mop of grey-white hair. ‘No, no. I buy higher up. It’s like the difference between always having to drop into the local for a packet of fags and ordering your Havanas in boxes from one of those places in St James’s. Only now things are a little changed.’ And he had neighed at me again, his teeth showing. ‘I need some more, and pretty soon now. I can’t face these bastards without it. And Miriam — what have they done with Miriam? All this time…’ He had been pulling open the door then. ‘I’ll murder the buggers,’ he had hissed in my ear, his breath hot on my cheek as he lurched out into the dining-room.
Back at the table he had gradually simmered down, the rush already dying. ‘Maybe Brian will be able to get me some more. Has Brian got any money, do you know?’
‘I think so.’ But I hadn’t told him his son had done what Miriam had done, borrowing things from the house to raise enough to get to Canada. Instead, I had asked him how much it cost to buy cocaine out here. He had shrugged, saying it depended on the quality, didn’t it? ‘The price has been falling recently. Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, they’re all flogging the stuff as hard as they can. They make it up in the mountains, little family labs, but the total of what those peasants produce often provides the bulk of the government’s income. It’s like those wine lakes m France and Italy. You can buy it cheap if you have to, but the good stuff — that always costs money. And if you don’t use good stuff, and you don’t cut it right, then you can do yourself a lot of damage. Pure cocaine — that crystalline rock stuff — it’s too strong, bad for the membranes of the nose, bad for the gums if you’re taking it orally. I always cut my own if I can.’ And when I had asked him if Brian was using it, he had shaken his head. ‘No, no. He’s tried it, but he has his own built-in high. Father to world causes, that’s Brian. But he always knows lots of people. Wherever he is he’s got contacts. He’ll know where to get it. Indians at Bella Bella probably, or further south at Alert Bay. They’re flush with money at the moment. Land sales. So there’s sure to be a pusher in Bella Bella, certainly at Bella Coola — that’s at the end of the road running in from Williams Lake and the white spruce country, along the Chilanko valley…’
They were just names, and thinking about them I fell asleep, having decided to go along with him as far as Skagway and the ship to Prince Rupert. I could always go on then to Vancouver. And in the morning the sun was shining, the river marked by the white of steam rising from the water.
By the time we reached the railway depot the coaches were already waiting, three of them, all rather elderly with little steel platforms at each end and wood-burning stoves. There was a party of Americans with a courier who wore a hat and looked harassed, a small group of Canadian schoolboys humping bagged-up inflatables, and individual travellers kept arriving in cars and taxis, some on foot. A general air of excitement pervaded the area between the depot buildings and the coaches, for there was a small camera crew of three taking close-ups of an actor making his way from one coach to the next.
We found seats and stowed our gear. Tom was travelling very light with the result that the rifle was even more conspicuous than it would have been otherwise. ‘What are you going to do about that?’ I asked him, suddenly conscious, now that we were in an organized system of transport, that there were such things as customs checks. Skagway was in Alaska, and Alaska was a part of the United States.
‘I’ve got a permit,’ he said.
‘Under your own name?’
‘Of course.’ He laughed, a tense, slightly nervous laugh. ‘The Americans don’t get fussed over guns the way the Canadians do. I remember my father telling me how Sam Steele and twenty Mounties made the Yanks coming up from Skagway hand in their guns. They didn’t like it, but that’s the way it was up there at that improvised customs post, and the con men sent up by Soapy Smith, the boss man of Skagway, to fleece the thousands staggering up that twelve-mile pass, they got short shrift. Now it’s just a train ride,’ he added and then fell silent. He was much less talkative now, almost morose.