Eric McCormack - Cloud

“You probably don’t realize how refreshing it is to hear that,” he said. “It’s a quality we don’t often find in business. Some people would claim they were experts on pumps and ventilators because they’d lived for a few months in a town that had a coal mine — what was it called? Duncairn?”

We both laughed.

“Look, as I told you before, it’s not another engineer we need,” he said. “It’s someone who’s smart and adaptable and doesn’t mind travelling. Our clients have their own engineers and they’re the ones who decide whether our design and performance specifications will do the trick for them. But they’d much rather deal with someone they can trust. If they buy one of our machines, they want to be sure they can rely on us if problems arise during the warranty period and that we’ll be fair and helpful thereafter. Clients appreciate that kind of commitment.”

I was still worried about my lack of technical expertise and reminded him that he’d only been at the La Mancha mine that day because he could handle the technical equipment for testing the air. His ease with that weird device was something that had impressed me deeply at the time.

He shook his head.

“Honestly, in twenty years in the business, I’ve never had to do anything like that,” he said. “I went down to perform the test, not because I was an engineer, but because their own engineers were too superstitious to go down and do it themselves. One of them actually had to show me how to switch the testing machine on and off. A child could have done that.”

He saw I was still hesitant, so again he tried to allay my fears.

“If you agreed to give the job a try, I wouldn’t just send you off on your own,” he said. “No, naturally I’d go along with you on your first few trips to show you the ropes and let you see for yourself what’s involved. I’d go with you till you were totally confident.”

I still couldn’t make up my mind, so he tried another tack.

“Back then, when we first met,” he said, “I remember you gave me a little sermon on the failings of the mining industry, with its pollution of nature and destruction of cultures. If you took this job, you’d have the opportunity to do something about those things — at the very least by providing machines that do the minimum damage.”

WHILE I WAS THINKING about that, he got up out of the armchair and went to the window, puffing at his cigar, looking out onto the lawn. I looked out too — it was getting dark now. Bats, or maybe small birds, flickered in and out of existence in the light cast by the window.

After a while, he turned to face me and I sensed he was about to play what he hoped would be his strongest card.

“Alicia’s a great girl,” he said. “Her mother died just after giving birth to her and her brother. He was stillborn and that made Alicia’s birth very difficult. I’ve never told anyone about this, but did you notice the blemish on her cheek? It was damaged getting her out of the womb and it’s never quite cleared up. She’s very conscious of it and adjusts her hair to cover the mark.”

I was a little embarrassed at how he was confiding in me. I pretended, of course, that I hadn’t noticed any blemish. He had more to say, however.

“I never remarried but tried to be both father and mother to Alicia,” he said. “I’m very proud of how she’s turned out. As you can guess, over the years, a number of men have wanted to marry her.” He paused a moment. “We didn’t approve of any of them.”

I couldn’t help but notice the “we.”

He now sat down opposite me and, as he talked, his eyes glinted like one of those jungle hawks when it’s about to strike its target. Indeed, that was how he seemed to me: outwardly a scrawny creature, but with startling energy when focused on his prey. What nimbleness and willpower it would take for me to counter him. If, that is, I’d even wanted to counter him. He hadn’t said outright that he wanted me to be the husband of his beloved daughter, but I’d no doubt about it.

What a temptation his implied offer was to one whose dreams were still haunted by the slums and oppressiveness of the Tollgate. The job might not be ideal, but if I accepted, I could travel the world, I’d live in comparative luxury for the rest of my life — and I’d have Alicia. Not long ago the idea of such treachery, such a betrayal of the memory of my love for Miriam on such mercenary considerations, would have been quite unthinkable. But, after all, wasn’t it Miriam who’d broken my heart? Was I to mourn the loss of her forever? Alicia certainly was beautiful— might I not, in time, fall in love with her?

“Well,” said Gordon Smith. “What do you think of my proposition?”

I came right out with it: yes, I’d really like to give it a try.

His eyes widened momentarily in pleasure, or triumph. He stretched out his thin hand.

“Great!” he said. “I’m delighted. I really am.”

I knew he meant it.

For two months following that conversation, Gordon Smith oversaw much of my life. He arranged a work visa for me as well as a furnished apartment. It was on the top floor of a building he owned, overlooking Camberloo Park with its fine old trees and elaborate flower beds.

Most weekdays, wearing one of my newly bought business suits, I’d walk the half mile from my apartment to Gordon’s office in the city square. He or Lew Jonson, his business partner and right-hand man, would coach me in the characteristics of the various types and sizes of the company’s pumps and ventilators.

Some days, we’d go to the factory a few miles west of Camberloo where the machines were assembled from the parts made at various steel foundries. The factory was quite small, with only a dozen skilled employees headed by Jonson. He was a plump, balding engineer and co-designer, with Gordon, of the pumps. As he showed me the various machines, he’d pat them affectionately as though they were dogs. His temperament was of the placid sort and clearly he’d have been unable to take Gordon’s place as a salesman.

My head was soon bursting with unfamiliar terminology: centrifugal and positive displacement, radial, mixed, or axial flow, single and multiple rotors, circumferential pistons, diaphragms and progressive cavities, pneumatic and centrifugal exhaust fans. Gordon Smith assured me that a display of my expertise in the language of our products was the passport to acceptance by future clients. To my surprise, it didn’t take too long for me to understand what the words meant and where the parts they named were located in the machines.

MOST EVENINGS after work, I’d eat in a little steakhouse in Camberloo Square then walk the mile or so back to my apartment and settle down with a book. But once or twice a week, Gordon Smith would bring me home with him for dinner.

Alicia always looked pleased to see me. I soon realized she wasn’t much of a talker — it was as if she’d said most of what she had to say on that day we first met. But I was flattered by the fact that she seemed to enjoy hearing me talk and would listen attentively, nodding her head in such a way that her curtain of hair gave only occasional glimpses of the blemish on her left cheek.

Not that we were alone together very much. Mainly, all three of us would eat dinner, then Gordon and I would adjourn to the library for brandies and cigars and he’d instruct me in the business. When he dealt with the profit-and-loss side of Smith’s Pumps, those eyes looked as though they could shatter glass. But when he talked about the art of selling, the human side of him would dominate and his eyes would soften.

Sometimes, these talks would go on so late that he’d insist I stay overnight in the guest room at the top of the stairs. Indeed, the overnight stays became frequent enough that I even left a change of clothes there. I’d often fall asleep in the guest room thinking of Alicia, who was just a few doors away.