Hardly Working. Betsy Burke
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I? White sails slid past the Yacht Club window and sliced through the glistening windy October ocean.
Slowly, my mother started to move. She reached down for her bag, pulled out a pen and piece of paper, wrote something down, then offered it to me. “This may be out of date but I don’t think so, if what I’ve heard through the grapevine is true. I don’t know if you ever met Rupert Doyle, rather a long time ago…”
I had a memory of a tall lanky ecstatic man, hair like tiny black bedsprings, bouncing me on his shoulders. I recalled storytelling after some big meals, and hearing from my room later the waves of hysterical adult laughter rising up to me until I drifted off to sleep. He told stories of exotic places where the landscape was in brighter warmer colors and people died suddenly and dramatically.
I said, “When I was little. He was often over at the house, I think.”
“Yes. That’s right. He might be able to help you. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject. You do what you like. But after this moment, I don’t want to hear another word about it for as long as I live. Do you understand, Dinah? Not one word.”
Well, happy, happy birthday.
The words scribbled on the piece of paper were Rupert Doyle, Eldorado Hotel.
That night, at home, I Googled Rupert Doyle. The situation was looking good. Up came a number of Web sites listing documentaries that Rupert Doyle had produced, some of them award winners. War zones, famine zones, and sometimes, royal sex scandal zones. Where there was disaster, hunger en masse, or a violent uprising, Rupert Doyle was there getting it on videotape for posterity. There was even a photo. It looked like the man I remembered, but twenty-five years older.
At work I was puffed up with pride just thinking about Rupert Doyle. I was already a taller, smarter, longer-thighed person for having his name written on that little slip of paper. I couldn’t wait to tell Thomas about it. Around the office, I managed to drop the name “Rupert Doyle” into at least three work-focused conversations that had nothing to do whatsoever with the kind of thing Rupert Doyle was involved with, like political documentaries about South America or Africa or the UK.
While Jake was talking about Shelter Recycling Project funds, I really pushed my luck and said, “You know, perhaps we could get Rupert Doyle, an old family friend of mine, to document the Shelter Recycling Project. I’m sure he’d do it if I asked him.”
Everyone looked at me as if to say, “Enough with this Doyle guy already, Dinah.”
Then Ian Trutch said, “Rupert Who?”
And I sort of stammered and said, “Rupert Doyle’s a very important person, a film producer.”
“Never heard of him,” said Ian Trutch.
So I blathered on, “Well, he’s an important person. He’s like…ah…Michael Moore. Would you say no to Michael Moore if he offered to come along and do a short for your organization? No, you wouldn’t. It’s about the same thing.” I was getting red in the face by then, and feeling quite small.
Wednesday
The portico of the Eldorado Hotel was framed in ceramic tile that must have once been white but was now stained yellow. The glass in its doorway was smudged with a month’s worth of dirty handprints. Inside, the air smelled of smoke, stale beer and Lysol. The sound of peppery upbeat music shuddered through the whole hotel. Behind a cramped reception desk with an old bronze grate, at the start of the corridor, a man with a papery thin skin poked letters into numbered slots. I cleared my throat and said, “Excuse me, I’m looking for Rupert Doyle. I was told he had a room here.” The man jerked his head toward the music and said, “You’ll find him in the lounge.” Then he leaned forward, about to become confidential. His face crinkled up like an accordion and he added, “Drinking with the Cubans.”
I hesitated then hurried down the corridor. When I stepped into the lounge, I felt as though I were inside a large streaky bell pepper. The walls were a wet dark red with the old wooden siding painted green and yellow. A mud-colored linoleum dance floor, stippled by a million stiletto heels, took up the centre of the lounge. A chubby middle-aged couple moved across it to a salsa rhythm, seeing only each other.
Up at the bar, a huge man was hunched in conversation with a short fat dark man. The tall man had the Rupert Doyle hair I remembered except that it was completely silver and he had a silver three-day growth of beard to match. His tall powerful bearlike body was almost exactly the same except for a slight thickening through the waist and chest. Otherwise, he was the same.
I approached him uncertainly. “Rupert Doyle?”
He swung around, saw me and said, “Christ.”
Now he was frowning.
“Mr. Doyle?”
“Do I know you?” He was cautious.
“Sort of,” I replied.
He was handsome. One of what I call the electric men. You can see ideas sparking in their eyes, the life force coursing through their bodies. As if they’d been given a double dose of energy right at the start. There was still a remnant of that old ecstasy in his face, but it had been tested over the years and now was worn down to vague contentment.
I didn’t give him a chance to blow it.
I came right out with it.
I said, “I’m Marjory Nichol’s daughter. My mother said I’d find you here.”
He put his hand on his heart. “Oh Jesus.” Then he put his hand to his head. “Christ. What a shock. That explains it. You scared the life out of me.”
“I did?”
“Just give me a second. Now. Marjory Nichols. Hell. You’re…? Goddamn. You’re…uh…wait a minute…Diane.”
“Dinah. You used to come round to our house years ago.”
“Well, sure I did. Of course I did. Stand back and let me look at you. How about that. So, well… How about that? Goddamn. You’re Marjory’s daughter.”
“Yes, I am.”
“How is your mom, anyway? How’s Marjory. I haven’t seen her in ages. I keep meaning to get in touch but life has a way of conspiring against old friendships….”
“Fine. She’s fine.”
“I keep meaning to get in touch but I’m often on the move. You know, I caught her on TV, that interview she did on the dying oceans for the BBC, a couple of years back. She sure is something. I was about to pick up the phone but as usual was interrupted by a business call. I’m rarely in the country these days and when I am, it’s all work.”
“She’s often on the move too so…”
“Yes, right, well, good, Marjory’s daughter. Unbelievable how time flies. You were just a little kid the last time I saw you….”
Then I blurted it out. No formalities. “I made her tell me. How to find you. You know? She knew how badly I wanted to meet my father. And well, now, here we are.”
Rupert Doyle’s eyes opened a little wider and took on the shape of half-moons as he peered. He took a step backward and held up his hands as if he were pushing me away. “Nooo,” he exhaled. “No, no. Just a minute now. You’re making a big mistake.”
Chapter Four
I was devastated. My first thought was, What’s so horrendous about me that you don’t want to admit that I’m your daughter? A minidepression was starting to form in me, like a tiny whirlwind building into a hurricane, with a pinch of pure rage tossed in for good measure.
I wanted to run crying to Thomas, make one of my emergency calls to him.
But Rupert Doyle read my expression right away. Total dejection edged with fury. He leapt in to correct himself. “No, no, please, don’t misunderstand. It’s