Eric McCormack - Cloud

Time gradually worked its magic on me, however. Soon enough the incident with Griffin began to take its place alongside that other weird erotic experience with Maratawi in Oluba. I no longer thought about either of them too much — and when I did, it was almost as though they were somewhat disturbing episodes in another man’s life rather than my own.

ANOTHER CALL FROM Curator Soulis came for me one morning when I was at my office desk studying some fairly dull engineering documents. He wanted to give me another brief report on how the research on The Obsidian Cloud was progressing. First, however, he again referred to how delighted his board was at my financial contribution — so much so, in fact, that they’d approved his request to commandeer an excellent researcher to assist him in his work on the book. Together with her, he’d quickly completed his work on the format and they’d managed to track down the company that printed the book.

In addition, they were vigorously hunting down some biographical leads on Macbane himself, as well as consulting various experts about the actual phenomenon described in the book. He knew these were the kinds of things that would be of interest to me and, probably, to book readers in general, so he thought he’d call and let me know.

I was, of course, all ears.

“We’ve already talked to some meteorological specialists — we had very little expectation of anything useful coming from them. We were wrong. They’ve made some rather interesting speculations,” said the curator. “We’ve also had extensive communications with academic historians about precedents for the black cloud. We still have a lot to do before we’ll be able to say anything definitive on that. All in all, it’s been quite a refreshing adventure for us — very different from our usual sort of research. As for who this man Macbane actually was, so far we haven’t had any luck finding anything tangible. But we do have some leads, and we haven’t by any means given up on that part of the quest. At any rate, I wanted you to know that I’ll be sending you all the details when we do arrive at our preliminary conclusions.”

Naturally, I looked forward to reading them.

“Well, always remember what I told you last time,” said the curator. “If you ever happen to be in Glasgow in the course of your travels, you’d be very welcome to drop by and see us. I know you’re a busy man, but I’d be delighted to meet you in person and bring you right up to date on our latest discoveries about the book.”

On that note, the call ended.

THAT SAME AFTERNOON, I left work early and went to see Frank at the Emporium. In his office at the back, I filled him in on the curator’s phone call. He was as thrilled as I was to hear about these latest developments.

“Why don’t you take him up on his invitation?” he said. “It would be great to go and talk to him directly about the book.” He suddenly had an idea. “Not only that, if you had time, you could even make a side visit to Duncairn and see what’s left of it.” He knew that all the Upland towns were now in a sorry condition.

I suppose this encouragement from Frank should have been all I needed to hear. Indeed, in my own mind, it wasn’t so much the meeting with the curator that tempted me as the prospect of a return to Duncairn. As Marsha Woods had said, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the woman who’d played such a major part in my emotional and mental life all these years — Miriam Galt — still lived there and I could see her again?

Yet no sooner had Frank urged me to pay a visit to Duncairn than the whole idea began to seem distasteful — a betrayal, a disloyalty both to him and to the memory of Alicia. So I made the excuse that it wouldn’t be possible: I had pressing business matters to deal with here in Canada.

“Oh, come on,” Frank said. “Jonson could look after things for a while. After all, what an opportunity to talk to an expert about The Obsidian Cloud . It really would be exciting.”

So, I convinced myself I ought to go, just to please Frank as much as anything else. After all, our shared interest in the mystery of Macbane and his book was, for me, an implicit acknowledgment of our newly discovered bond as father and son.

When I got back to my own office, I phoned the National Cultural Centre. Soulis had left for the day, but I was able to arrange an appointment with him for the following Monday morning. I made my travel plans accordingly.

SOMETIMES, NOW, I wonder what might have happened if I’d decided not to go on that journey. But, of course, that’s not something worth dwelling on. Presumably, if there really is such a thing as destiny, none of the obvious actions a person could take would change it. For all we know, the very flimsiest material — a word misheard, a false assumption, an excusable miscalculation — might actually be the most potent link in the chain.

From the window of the plane the first signs of land — the western islands — appeared. Between gaps in the clouds I could see them outlined in snow against the dark ocean. There were even glimpses of isolated villages and tiny houses. That anything as fragile as life, never mind love, could survive down there was hard to believe.

By the time we landed at the airport just south of Glasgow an hour later, it was after four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and already dusk. Snow was falling here, too.

I hired a car and was very careful at first, for I wasn’t accustomed to driving on the left side of the road. It made me feel rather disoriented, as if some reversal of the natural order had occurred. I eventually got used to the sensation of being in a looking-glass world. But I still had to go slowly, for the snow turned to sleet, then a heavy rain.

BY THE TIME I got to the edges of the city, night had fallen and the street lights were on. I’d taken the long way round so that I could approach from the east side. That way I passed directly through the Tollgate, which I hadn’t seen since the time of the explosion, all those years ago. I’d braced myself to confront bitter memories but instead was stunned at what had taken place in the intervening years. While the contours of the main streets were much the same, the entire area where I’d been brought up was transformed. The tenements had all been demolished, and newish apartment blocks with little rows of well-lit stores and fast-food restaurants had sprung up to replace them. As though no nightmare had ever occurred.

Quite bewildered, I just kept driving towards the city centre, keeping an eye out for a hotel. Soon I found myself near the docks, with the river alongside glinting in its old, menacing way. From what I could see through the lashing rain, the ships tied up at the wharfs looked as rusty as ever. But otherwise, this whole part of the city was also unrecognizable. The dangerous slums that used to crowd both banks had disappeared to make room for clusters of high rises and flashy office blocks. A few of the more historic buildings seemed to have been spared and spruced up — including one with an illuminated sign: The Strath Hotel . It looked inviting, so I parked on the street as near as I could and hurried back to it out of the cold wind and the rain.

Since the lobby was warm and a room was available, I checked in. I was famished, and so after depositing my bag in the room, I made my way down to the hotel’s low-ceilinged pub-cum-restaurant. It was thick with the smells of fried food, beer, and cigarette smoke. A dozen or more customers were sitting at the various booths. Some of the men wore uniforms— perhaps from the ships I’d noticed — and were accompanied by female companions in noticeable makeup.