The Smoke Jumper (25 page)

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Did you hear about that flight attendant who got caught banging - sorry, Mom - having “intimate congress” with a passenger the other day?’

‘Nope,’ Connor said. ‘But I’ve a feeling you’re gonna tell us.’

‘Well, if you insist. They fired her and you know what? Ticket sales went through the roof. Every flight fully booked. Now they call it “the airline that gives a fuck.”’

‘Ed, please!’ his mother said. ‘Connor, what can we do with this boy?’

‘Well, Mrs Tully, I hear the white slavery business is still pretty big in some parts of Asia.’

‘That’s a good idea. We’ll sell him.’

‘Oh, please,’ Ed said. ‘What kind of price would you get for a blind, diabetic, failed composer.’

‘What do you mean failed?’ his mother said.

‘Mom, it was a joke.’

For a while everyone was silent. Annie came in to clear away the plates. Then Ed’s father spoke up.

‘So, Connor. What do you think about this pair of love-birds here getting hitched and all?’

Ed felt like kicking him under the table. But it was too late.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Tully?’ Connor said.

‘These two . . . Hell, Ed, haven’t you even told your best friend yet?’

Ed took a deep breath.

‘You guys are getting married?’

‘We were keeping it as a surprise for later. Thanks, Dad.’

He reached for Julia’s hand and found it and felt a tension there that surprised him. Perhaps she was just annoyed, as he was, at his father blurting out their news. He clasped her hand in both of his.

‘Yes. I picked my moment, got her exceedingly drunk, popped the question and, incredible as it may seem, she said yes.’

He leaned toward her and they kissed each other on the lips.

‘Well,’ Connor said. ‘That’s great. Congratulations.’

‘Thanks, man.’

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Ed’s mother said. ‘We’re all so happy.’

‘The cat seems to have gotten Julia’s tongue,’ his father said.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.’

Her voice sounded strange but Ed figured she was simply embarrassed. He came to the rescue.

‘How about that you’re really, really lucky, given all the thousands of beautiful and talented women you had to compete with, to have snared such a fine figure of a man.’

Everyone laughed.

‘I think you should propose a toast, Jim,’ his mother said.

‘Before you put your foot in it again.’

‘You bet.’

Ed could hear them all picking up their glasses.

‘To Julia and Ed.’

His mother and Connor repeated it. The glasses clinked.

‘And health and happiness.’

 

Connor watched her sitting on the rug in front of the great fireplace. He and Ed were sitting in an imposing pair of leather armchairs, high-backed and deeply studded, facing one another across the hearth, each cradling a globed glass of Jim Tully’s finest brandy. Julia had her back propped against Ed’s legs and was staring into the fire and Ed was absently stroking the nape of her neck while he finished another story. Connor could see she wasn’t listening and he wondered what she was thinking.

They were in what Ed’s father called the den, though it was twice the size of most living rooms. There were two leather-topped tables stacked with books and the walls were lined with hundreds more, many of them ancient and bound in hide. Ed maintained that his father had bought them by the yard and never read a single one. The floor was a patchwork of old oriental rugs onto which four tall brass reading lamps with green glass shades cast pools of light. Above them the room remained dim and shadowy and the firelight flickered on the ceiling.

Ed’s parents had gone to bed, so now it was just the three of them. Suddenly there was silence and Connor realized that Ed had asked him a question.

‘Sorry, man, I was just thinking about something. What was that?’

‘I said, we’re really sorry about the way you found out. We wanted to tell you ourselves.’

‘Hey, that’s okay. I’m just real happy for you both.’

Julia turned from the fire and looked at him. Twice at dinner he had caught her staring at him, but on each occasion she looked away immediately after their eyes met. Now she held his gaze steadily and he knew she was gauging whether he had spoken the truth. He tried to read what else was in those dark eyes apart from sadness, but he couldn’t. And this time it was he who first looked away.

‘When’s the wedding?’

‘The last Saturday in June. I need to get a little fitter first. You know, for the honeymoon.’ He laughed and Julia pulled a face and tapped him on the knee like a schoolmarm. ‘I’ve asked all my friends but nobody seems to want to be my best man, so I wondered if you’d do it.’

‘I’ll have to see if I’m available. Where’s it going to be?’

‘Here. We wanted to do it in Montana, but until we’ve found a place, we figured it was simpler to do it here.’

‘Found a place? You mean you’re coming to live in Montana?’

‘Hey, pal, it’s a free country.’

Connor looked at Julia and she smiled and gave a little shrug.

‘That’s great.’ Connor tried to sound enthusiastic. ‘Where?’

‘Oh, somewhere around Missoula, if we can find the right place. Listen, sorry, guys, I’ve got to go take a leak. I’ll be right back.’

He put down his glass, found his cane and stood up. Julia started to get up too, offering to take him, but he declined sharply, saying that he could find his own way to the john, for heaven’s sake. It was the first glimpse of irritation Connor had seen. Julia settled down and looked into the fire again while the tapping of Ed’s cane faded across the hallway.

‘Julia?’

She turned to him and there was such a tragic look in her eyes that it took him a moment to go on.

‘Are you okay?’

She gave a little shake of her head. ‘Not really. But I’m getting there.’

He held out his hand and she hesitated then took it and held it in both of hers. Her skin felt cold.

‘I’m sorry I never returned your calls.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘I guess I just didn’t know what to say. I was so ashamed about what I said to you that day. I didn’t mean it.’

‘I know. It’s okay.’

‘You saved my life. And I know I should . . .’

She swallowed and shook her head and looked away into the fire.

‘Tell me.’

‘I just . . . sometimes wish you hadn’t.’

Tears broke from her eyes. Connor leaned forward and clasped both her hands in his.

‘Julia, what happened wasn’t your fault.’

Out in the hallway a door clicked and again they heard the tap of the cane. Julia took her hands away and wiped away her tears. Connor’s voice was low and urgent now.

‘You mustn’t think that. You did all you could.’

She gave a wry little smile.

‘Sure.’

Ed came into the room and Connor watched him find his way without falter to his chair. Silence hung over them like a shroud.

‘Okay,’ Ed said. ‘So either you’re asleep or you were talking about me - which is fine. What better subject is there?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Julia said. Her voice was instantly, startlingly cheerful. The only hint of what had just passed was the smudged mascara under her left eye. ‘Anyhow, we’ve been talking about you all evening. You haven’t asked Connor a single thing about what he’s up to.’

‘True. So what’s hot in Montana, cowboy? How’s the photo business?’

‘Oh, pretty much the same as ever. It’s okay, I guess. I’ve sold a few pictures. Truth is, it’s time I moved on.’

He took a sip of brandy. They were both waiting for him to continue.

‘Connor, you’re such a pain in the ass,’ Ed said. ‘When you say something like that, all casual, like it’s nothing at all, it’s a sure sign that there’s a major life-change about to happen. For heaven’s sake, move on where?’

‘I’m going to travel a little.’

‘That’s great. Where exactly?’

‘Europe first, then Africa maybe.’

‘Great. To take pictures?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘So, where in Europe exactly?’

Connor knew Julia was staring at him. He was avoiding her eyes.

‘Come on, man. What’s the big secret?’

‘I’m going to Bosnia.’

‘Wow. You got, like, an assignment or something?’

‘No, I figured I’d just go.’

‘What, you can go to a war zone, just like that?’

Connor shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll find out. I’m just going to play it by ear.’

‘Wow! Well, good for you, man. When do you go?’

‘Well, I was figuring on leaving pretty soon. Now I guess I’ll have to kick my heels till after this darned wedding of yours.’

He had made it all sound more definite than it was, or at least, than it had been. He’d been thinking about the trip for some time and had done his research. But it wasn’t until just now, hearing that the woman he loved was to be married, that he knew for certain that he would go. Julia hadn’t said a word nor taken her eyes off him. And at last he looked at her and smiled but she didn’t smile back.

Had he thought about it and had Ed been able to see, he would never have done what he then did. Quite on impulse, he leaned forward and wiped the mascara from Julia’s cheek. And she closed her eyes at his touch and silently bowed her head.

14

T
he house that they found in Montana stood above a rocky bend of the Bitterroot River, with the forest rising steeply behind it. It was on two floors and built of logs and had an acre and a half of land laid largely to grass. There were apple trees and pear trees and the side of the house that looked down on the river had tall glass doors and a deck and a yellow rambling rose run riot. The place had been built nine years ago by a couple who were sculptors and there was a long barn that they had used as a studio. One of their pieces, an elaborate totem pole carved from a pine tree thirty feet tall, stood at the foot of the lawn so that the scowling eagle at its top glowered east over the river like a sentinel.

After the wedding they had spent ten days lying on a beach in Mexico. Ed took along a stack of novels on audio-cassette but couldn’t stand the music they plastered on, so he got Julia to read to him from her book,
Madame Bovary
, and was soon concocting a musical version of it called
Oh, Madame!
Sometimes he would fall asleep while Julia was reading and she would stop and gaze at the pelicans patrolling the shoreline in lazy squadrons and making their comical crash-dives into the surf.

Tanned and refreshed, they flew directly to Missoula to start looking for a house. She had expected that it would take many weeks to find somewhere that they liked, but they found it on the third day, which was just as well because house-hunting with Ed was a tiring business. He wanted every detail described. What color were the kitchen walls? What could you see when you looked out the bedroom window? Did the river look good for fishing? Could she see any trout rising?

‘Hundreds,’ she said. ‘They’re monsters. There isn’t room for them all. They’re even sunbathing on the bank.’

The downstairs was one big living room with a wood floor and Ed stood there and sang so that he could get an idea of the acoustics. The realtor, a jovial woman of about fifty in scarlet lipstick and big gold earrings, thought it was hysterical. Especially when Ed got her singing too.

‘Hmm. Most impressive,’ he said. ‘The Maria Callas of Missoula.’

His parents had given him a new piano as a wedding present, a sleek black Yamaha baby grand. He asked Julia where it should stand, saying it had to be somewhere that had a view of the river. The realtor caught Julia’s eye and Ed somehow sensed it and explained to her that even though he couldn’t see it, it was important to know it was there. The obvious place was by the glass doors that led out onto the deck.

And that was where, nine months later, it now stood. Ed had made it the center of what he called NASA control - the complex of keyboards, screens and computer equipment that did indeed look capable of launching a small missile. On the piano’s lid, among the stacks of braille sheets, each with a different object upon it for identification, stood the silver-framed black and white picture that Connor had taken of them at the wedding. In it Ed was laughing - no doubt at one of his own jokes - the Kentucky sun flaring like a starburst in his sunglasses, while Julia, looking sideways at the camera, kissed him on the cheek. It still struck her as odd that Ed had never seen nor ever would see how they had looked that day.

There was, however, something more profound about the image that struck her only later. With its devotional kiss, the pose somehow symbolized the compact they had made, or rather, the compact that Julia had made with herself. It was straightforward enough. She had caused Ed to lose his eyesight, so now he would have hers. This didn’t mean that she had married him merely from a sense of duty. Nor that she didn’t love him. Of course she did. And her admiration at his courage, his lack of self-pity and his unflagging optimism grew with every day she spent with him. All of this was there in the picture as a daily reminder to her that this was how things were and would be; that this was now her allotted life. That the photograph also showed her looking sideways at Connor was something she refused to allow into her head.

They had moved into the house at the end of September. Both of their mothers came to stay for a few days to help them get things straight, and although they were about as different as two women could be - the southern belle and the Italian hairdresser from Brooklyn - they got along famously and laughed so much that for a while after they left the place seemed empty.

Those first few months had been hectic. The local Blind and Low Vision Services had sent rehab and orientation and mobility counselors to help them. They adapted the kitchen, marking the stove and the microwave and food containers with little rubber dots and magnets so that Ed could figure things out. They pruned the rose and the fruit trees so that he wouldn’t catch his face on them and then erected posts with a rope strung between them all the way from the deck down to the river and along the bank, so that he could safely go there by himself.