Eric McCormack - Cloud

In the mornings, her father and I would have breakfast and be on our way to the office before she was up and about.

ONE NIGHT when we were sitting in the limo on our way to his house for dinner, Gordon told me he’d be leaving for Toronto immediately after we ate.

“I have to catch the overnight train to Montreal,” he said. “I’m having problems with a major supplier there so I’d better go and see what’s going on. I probably won’t be back till tomorrow night, at the earliest. Jonson will keep you busy at the factory. He wants to show you some of the latest components.”

The dinner was pleasant. Gordon was, naturally, somewhat preoccupied. I talked quite a bit and Alicia was, as usual, the perfect listener. When we’d finished eating, we accompanied Gordon out to the limo. He ducked into the back seat and, before closing the door, spoke directly to me.

“Harry, why don’t you stay overnight and keep Alicia company?” he said. “It’ll give you both a chance to talk without me in the way.” He said goodbye to us, shut the door, and the limo took off down the street.

SO, FOR THE FIRST TIME, only Alicia and I went into the library. We sipped brandy and I puffed away at one of the Cuban cigars. Gordon’s parting words had been ambiguous enough to make me feel nervous and uncertain, so the conversation was rather stilted and general. After a while, the maid put her head in for a second to tell us she’d finished tidying up and was on her way home.

Now that we were completely alone in the house I felt even more nervous. To my relief Alicia put on some classical piano music that was being considered for background at the art gallery. We sat listening and smiling approvingly. Around ten, when the music ended, Alicia finished the one small glass of brandy she’d been sipping all along and put it down.

“Well, it’s time for bed. Goodnight,” she said, looking into my eyes calmly. She left the library and I heard her climb the stairs.

Now that she was gone, I felt quite depressed. I poured some more brandy and glanced without much interest through the illustrations in The Hydraulic Deep Earth Pump . At about ten-thirty, I thought I’d better go to bed myself if I was to get up in the morning. I switched off the library light and climbed the stairs to the guest room.

ALICIA’S DOOR at the end of the little hallway was ajar, showing the muted light of her bed lamp. I was halfway inside my own door when I decided to take a chance and call out goodnight to her.

“Why don’t you come in for a while?” she called back.

My heart began pounding. I caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror: an anxious and nervous-looking stranger. So I took a deep breath, went along to her room, and pushed the door open.

She was lying on top of the bed in her nightdress. As I came in she closed the book she’d been reading and put it on the nightstand. She was still wearing her makeup, her eyes mascaraed, her lips red. Her hair had been brushed back, so I could see the flawed left side of her face — a kind of bruising on the skin.

“You took a long time coming up,” she said. She held out her hand.

I could hardly breathe as I went to her. I murmured her name.

“Don’t talk,” she said in the softest of voices.

WE DID TALK LATER, long after midnight, lying in each other’s arms. The bed lamp was still on and I was admiring her.

“I was beginning to think you didn’t like me,” she said.

I protested that she couldn’t have been more wrong, that I’d been in a state of tension all night, that I’d kept thinking about telling her how much I wanted her, that I’d kept quiet only because I was afraid if I tried to take advantage of the situation she’d be deeply offended.

She snuggled against me.

“Men know so little,” she said. “Most women are quite flattered to be asked — after all, the worst that can happen is that they’ll say no. I mean if a man doesn’t ask, how is he ever to find out?” Her brown eyes, dark in the low light of lamp, were on me. “I’ll bet there are women in all those places you’ve travelled wishing you’d asked them,” she said, laughing softly. “Aside from just the fun of it, if a man and a woman don’t spend some time in bed together, how are they to know whether they’re compatible?”

This down-to-earth approach to something I’d always tended to think of in a semi-mystical way astonished me.

She hugged me tightly for a while then let me go.

“You’ve got to be up for work in a few hours,” she said. “You’d better go to your room if either of us is going to get any sleep.”

Of course, she was right. It was a hard thing to do, but I went back to my own bed and lay there for a while wondering what it would be like to be married to such a woman. I had just decided it might be a very good thing when I did indeed manage to fall asleep.

Next afternoon I was at the factory with Jonson, studying the specifications of a variety of spare parts, when Gordon Smith phoned and asked for me. He’d arrived back from Montreal earlier than he’d expected and gone straight home. He’d had a successful trip and wanted to discuss something.

“Would you be able to come over again for dinner?”

I said I would.

“By the way, I’ve chatted with Alicia,” he said. “She tells me you both had a good talk last night.” He sounded amused, but I couldn’t be sure. I made some inconsequential reply about how we’d stayed up too late.

“Anyway, we’ll both look forward to seeing you at dinner tonight,” he said.

I ARRIVED AT THE HOUSE by taxi around seven. The conversation over dinner was quite normal. I tried to behave towards Alicia in a way that wouldn’t give any hint of what had happened the night before, difficult though it was with Gordon watching. His eyes seemed more than ever impossible to deceive.

Yet he was clearly in the best of moods, talking about Montreal in general and the various fine hotels and restaurants he usually frequented on his trips there. He didn’t say much about the reasons for this latest journey — he rarely discussed business at table. I gathered there had been a problem with the production of valve linings in a Montreal factory, but it was now satisfactorily resolved.

Later, he and I went into the library, drank brandies, and puffed on Cuban cigars. After a while he talked about the reason he’d wanted me to come for dinner.

“You’ve been with the firm now for about three months,” he said. “I know that’s not very long and I don’t want to press you unduly. But you’ve seen for yourself how much I have to do at the office, keeping on top of the running of day-to-day business affairs. Then there are trips like the one to Montreal that are symptomatic of the kind of thing that’s been happening more and more as we’ve expanded. The truth is, from now on I’m going to have to spend the bulk of my time dealing strictly with the business end, especially making sure we get the highest-quality parts. In other words, I need to be here in Canada. Jonson and I believe it’s high time someone else took over the travelling part of the job.”

I knew what was coming.

“We both agree you’re the man for it,” he said. “You’ve worked hard and Jonson’s been very impressed by how quickly you’ve come to have a sound grasp of the ins and outs of the machinery. So, what do you think? Could you see yourself dealing with our customers abroad? As I promised you before, I’d keep you company at first to make sure things go smoothly. If you say no, we’re back to square one.” I could hear the anxiety in his voice, so I immediately put him at his ease: if he thought I could do it, I’d like to give it a try.