Eric McCormack - Cloud

I didn’t know much about Canada or Quebec, for that matter, except that they had always seemed to be very pleasant places compared to the Tollgate. Why would anyone choose to leave them and work in such a backwards and dangerous region as I’d heard Africa was?

He rolled his eyes.

“Ah, that’s a long story,” he said.

Just then the gong for lunch sounded from the passenger area.

“I’m afraid my story will just have to wait till another time,” he said. “Meanwhile, I hope those pills help. It’s been nice talking to you. I’ll come back tomorrow and see how you’re feeling.” Then he headed towards the companionway door and disappeared inside.

Dupont did come back to see me the next day and indeed every day of the voyage thereafter. He gave me the impression, without ever saying so, that his fellow passengers weren’t interesting companions and had as little in common with him as my crewmates had with me. We’d talk sometimes for as long as an hour, and the deck foreman never seemed to mind — there was an unwritten ship’s policy that paying passengers should have as much leeway as they wished.

Some nights after my duties were over we’d go to his cabin for a drink. The cabin was small but luxurious compared to my space in the crew’s quarters. Aside from his bed and desk, there were two chairs and even a little bookcase with some paperback novels alongside more austere-looking medical journals. We’d sit on the chairs at either end of the desk and he’d pour us each a hefty glass of scotch.

I hadn’t had much acquaintance with scotch, so on the first of these occasions, it opened me up and I told him a good deal about myself — about the deaths of my parents, about Jacob and Deirdre and their cats and how that had led me to Duncairn. My heart had been broken there by Miriam Galt. I suppose I must have gone on about that quite a bit, but he listened patiently.

“The place and that girl obviously left their mark on you,” he said after a while. “I’m afraid doctors don’t have any pills for a broken heart. I can’t even offer you some good advice. All I can say is, I know how you feel.”

Naturally I didn’t believe that. No one could have gone through what I’d gone through.

But it was now Dupont’s turn to talk, and talk he did.

“The other day you asked me why I chose to work in Africa,” he said. “I’ve met people who think it must be a saintly quality that would drive a person to give up the luxuries of Canada and go work in some dangerous backwater. But believe me, there isn’t a bit of the saint in me. No, the fact is, I actually enjoy working in dangerous places. Maybe that’s partly because they take my mind off something that happened to me twelve years ago. As in your own case, it was a matter of the heart.”

He poured us another scotch and explained what he meant.

DUPONT HAD ATTENDED medical school in Montreal with the aim of becoming a surgeon-cum-anthropologist. There he met and married the woman he loved. She was tall and delicate, with long black hair, a student in fine arts who worked during the summers in a little jewellery boutique. Between them, they’d very little money but were able to get along because of her part-time job.

One day when she came home from work she told him that the owner of the boutique, who had several others across the country, wanted her to forget about finishing her degree and come and work full time for his business. He’d heard from some of his wealthy clients that she had an eye for just the kind of items that appealed to them. So he wanted her to represent the chain at the big jewellery markets in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, where he bought his stock. The increase in her salary would be more than enough to make their lives very comfortable while Dupont went through medical school.

She and Dupont talked the offer over and eventually agreed that she should accept it. It was understood that, after Dupont completed his degree and established himself, she’d go back and finish her own studies.

So when the fall term began, instead of heading for the university together each morning as they once did, she began her new job. It involved spending a lot of time on planes and living in hotels. She’d be gone sometimes for a whole week, but whenever she was home they couldn’t get enough of each other and would spend every spare minute together. They’d bought a car by now, rented a big new fifth-floor apartment looking onto the mountain, and ate at the very best restaurants in town. She was able to buy expensive clothes, suitable to her new position. Indeed, as a form of advertising, she wore some of the firm’s costliest necklaces, rings, and brooches when they were out together. A little safe had to be installed in the apartment especially for these jewels.

In early December of that first year in her new position, she had to go to a dealers’ market in Boston. She’d already done a lot of flying and thought it might be a pleasant change just to drive the new car this time. Boston wasn’t that far from Montreal — just four or five hours on the highway.

Dupont was a little concerned because, even though there had been no sign of snow as yet, the weather at that time of year could turn bad very quickly. She assured him she’d be careful.

Around seven on the morning of the trip, he walked her to the elevator, kissed her, and told her how much he loved her.

“I wish I were staying here with you,” she said, hugging him tightly. “Always remember, I’m only doing this because I love you more than anything in the world.” Just before the elevator door closed, she promised she’d call him that night from her hotel in Boston.

Dupont’s phone did indeed ring at nine o’clock that night. But it wasn’t a call from his wife. It was a Massachusetts police officer, who informed him that his wife had been killed in a collision with a truck during a snow squall on the turnpike an hour out of Boston. The police had found his address in her wallet. The passenger in the car with her was killed, too. The officer gave Dupont the passenger’s name: it was the owner of the business. They’d both died instantly.

Dupont wondered why his wife hadn’t mentioned that her employer would be travelling with her. But he was too grief-stricken to dwell on it.

Grief or not, along with her sorrowing family he managed to get through the funeral. Then he had to deal with the sad business of winding up her affairs. An insurance company representative assured him that all the funeral expenses would be taken care of, but wondered if he wished to continue the coverage on her jewels.

Dupont was surprised to hear that. The only expensive jewels she ever wore belonged to her employer, so she wouldn’t have insured them.

The insurance agent assured him that yes, they were her property and she’d had them expertly evaluated at half a million dollars a month ago. She’d gone ahead and insured them for that sum and they were now Dupont’s, as her only beneficiary.

Over the following weeks, with grim determination to know everything, Dupont established the facts. Records showed that his wife had indeed been given the jewels as outright gifts by the owner. In addition, he discovered that the owner had accompanied her on several of her business trips — hotel clerks remembered especially the striking woman with the long black hair. The two shared planes and meals — and hotel rooms.

Dupont couldn’t believe what a fool he’d been not to have suspected. Now her sudden elevation within the firm made sense. His first instinct was to take those jewels of hers and throw them into the deepest part of the St. Lawrence.

Then he thought better of it and instead went to a dealer in jewels and sold them for half of what they were worth. But he couldn’t bear to be in Montreal anymore, so he transferred to the medical school at the University of Camberloo in the province of Ontario. There he was able to live very well on the money from the jewels.