Eric McCormack - Cloud

As we got nearer to the lagoon the stink became eye-watering. The path was lined with bushes of red and yellow frangipani in full blossom, but whatever fragrance they might have given off was undetectable in the manmade stench.

We were soon on the bank of the lagoon itself. It was the size of a football field, with walls about ten feet high. Most of the water it once held had already seeped back into the river. The ancient pump stood half immersed in sludge, like some primeval water creature. From the bank, the engineer pointed out the jagged cracks in the shell of the engine and the areas where the impeller’s blade and housing had shattered. The manager translated for him, then asked Gordon hopefully:

“You can repair it, señor ?”

Gordon shook his head.

“I’m afraid its days are over,” he said. “The miracle is that it’s survived so many years.”

WE WENT BACK to the office and began discussing the specifications for a new pump with the manager and his engineer. Gordon did all the talking. We’d brought along the briefcase of brochures and diagrams. He showed the engineer our most powerful model, made of alloys incomparably tougher and more flexible than the cast iron of the old pump. He said he was confident that our engineer, Jonson, could very quickly adapt it to their needs.

Questions were asked about price and installation date — less than a month, in Gordon’s view. The manager said he’d consult the owners and then get back to us with a decision that evening at our hotel in the city.

ON THE RIDE BACK to La Coruna, Gordon was in a very good mood. The road was newly paved and the company car was air-conditioned.

But I wasn’t so happy. I’d seen during my experience as a tutor just how mercenary the mining industry often was. The only thing the owners seemed to care about was keeping their mines operating and maximizing profits. In the case of the Santa Cruz mine, giving it a new, better pump would only ensure that it would carry on just as before, and might make the men work even harder. As for the pollution of the river and the poisoning of the natives downstream, they would be carried out even more efficiently.

I told Gordon what was on my mind.

“I agree, to a certain extent,” he said. “But if we don’t sell them a new pump, one of our rivals will. That’s how business works.” He could see this didn’t cheer me up. “Look, Harry. Our pump will make things better for the miners, if the owners go for it. It’ll be much more reliable and won’t need cleaning the dangerous way the old one did.”

I didn’t say anything, so he knew I still wasn’t as excited as he thought I ought to have been.

“Surely you can see it’s not our job to tell our customers what we think is right or wrong about their practices,” he said. “If we did that, believe me, we’d soon be bankrupt. I’m not saying we don’t have our own moral responsibilities and that we don’t have to adhere to them as well as we can. For example, we use the very best materials and we make our machinery as safe and reliable as possible. Isn’t that a benefit to the miners who depend on them?

“Another thing is, we never cheat our customers. We sell our products at a fair profit and we stand by the quality of our workmanship. Those are our ethical responsibilities and we live up to them. The business world’s just as complicated as the rest of the world — that’s something you’ll find out. There are no simple solutions, so we can’t expect everyone to do what we think is the right thing when perhaps it isn’t.”

I wasn’t convinced by that defence. Perhaps because the manager had reminded me of him, I wished my father were here to make one of his astute comments. But of course, he was long gone now and I couldn’t think of anything astute to say.

LATER THAT NIGHT, the manager phoned Gordon at the hotel to tell him to go ahead with the new pump. Afterwards we went down to the bar to celebrate the sale — the pump in question was our finest, most expensive model. This sale had been an unexpected bonus.

Back in my hotel room, I phoned Alicia to tell her I missed her.

“Me too,” she said. “I can’t wait to see you again. Gordon called me a couple of hours ago to say the trip’s been very successful.”

He hadn’t mentioned to me that he’d already spoken to her. I wasn’t as surprised as I used to be that they’d communicated with each other without involving me. Nor did I tell her about my own mixed feelings about the sale. She was too much like Gordon to appreciate my squeamishness. Perhaps they were both right and I was taking too personally what was really only a business deal.

Her voice over the phone was seductive. “You and I will find a special way to celebrate when you’re home.”

THAT NIGHT I LAY in the hotel bed for a while, unable to sleep, thinking over what had happened. Eventually, I convinced myself that the Smiths’ common-sense way of looking at the world was probably a very reasonable one and that the scraps of idealism I’d retained were nothing but a sign I hadn’t really grown up.

Then I slept an uneasy sleep.

On our return to wintry Camberloo, Alicia did try to make my homecoming more than usually enjoyable. Gordon and I had arrived from the airport late in the day. We’d eaten a light meal and Alicia had toasted our success with a glass of wine. Soon Gordon, exhausted by the journey, bade us goodnight and headed off to bed.

Shortly afterwards, Alicia and I went upstairs. She prepared the tub in the bathroom, surrounding it with candles which she lit while the tub filled. We lay together in the warm water for a while. Then we dried each other off and made good use of a jug of aromatic oil before entering into the most pleasurable of exertions.

BUT WHAT MADE this occasion particularly memorable was something Alicia revealed to me later, as we lay in each other’s arms.

“Do you remember the first time we made love?” she said.

How could I ever forget that night Gordon went off to Montreal, leaving us the house to ourselves?

“I told him all about it when he came back,” she said.

Surely she didn’t mean all about it?

“Yes, all about it,” she said, nuzzling into my shoulder. “I’d always made it clear to him that I couldn’t marry someone I wasn’t comfortable with in bed. That’s why he told you to stay with me that night. He wanted me to have a chance to try you out. When he came home and asked me about it, I assured him it was a great success.”

She saw how surprised I was at hearing this. Not that I hadn’t suspected he’d connived with her to get us alone together — maybe even as far as the bed. But that she’d then given him an evaluation of our love-making! That struck me as very unromantic. I thought of asking her if she’d “tried out” those previous suitors Gordon had mentioned. I knew she’d tell me the truth if that was what I really wanted, for she was by nature a truth-teller. But I didn’t want to know.

“Did I say the wrong thing?” she said, laughing at my reaction. “I’d have kept it to myself if I’d realized that’s what you preferred.”

She was looking at me now, her brown eyes warm and affectionate. I think she was fond of me, as much as anything because I was so guileless — just as I was fond of her, as much as anything because she was so honest. Perhaps that was a good enough basis for a marriage.

BUT LOVE? True love? On that matter, I felt I had some basis for comparison. If I loved Alicia at all, it was a lesser kind of love than the all-consuming kind I’d experienced with Miriam. Just remembering that love made me both sad and happy: sad that it didn’t work out, but happy that the possibility of it existed and that I’d once known it. Or, at least, so I believed, and I’d held on to that belief in the way others might hold on to a belief in a great power that makes sense of their world for better or for worse.