In High Places

‘I understand that. Captain.’

‘But this young man has been with me for twenty months. In that time one forms, shall we say, opinions, even attachments.’ The voice was slow and ponderous. ‘The boy has not had a good life, perhaps he will never have one, and I suppose it is no affair of mine. And yet I would not like to see his hopes raised, then destroyed cruelly.’

‘I can only tell you again,’ Alan said, ‘that there are people who would like to see him given a chance here. It may not be possible, but if no one tries we shall never know.’

‘That is true.’ The captain nodded. ‘Very well, Mr Maitland, I will send for Duval and you may talk here. Would you like to be alone?’

‘No,’ Alan said. ‘I’d prefer it if you stayed.’

Henri Duval stood in the doorway nervously. His eyes took in Alan Maitland, then darted to Captain Jaabeck.

The captain motioned Duval inside. ‘You need not be afraid. This gentleman, Mr Maitland, is a lawyer. He has come to help you.’

‘I read about you yesterday,’ Alan said, smiling. He offered his hand and the stowaway took it uncertainly. Alan noticed that he was younger even than the newspaper picture had made him seem, and that his deep-set eyes held an uneasy wariness. He was wearing denims and a darned seaman’s jersey.

‘It was good, what was written. Yes?’ The stowaway asked the question anxiously.

‘It was very good,’ Alan said. ‘I came to find out how much of it was true.’

‘It all true! I tell truth!’ The expression was injured, as if an accusation had been hurled. Alan thought: I must choose my words more carefully.

‘I’m sure you do,’ he said placatingly. ‘What I meant was whether the newspaper had got everything right.’

‘I not understand.’ Duval shook his head, his expression still hurt.

‘Let’s forget it for the moment,’ Alan said. He had made a bad start, it seemed. Now he went on, ‘The captain told you I am a lawyer. If you would like me to, I will represent you and try to bring your case before the courts of our country.’

Henri Duval glanced from Alan to the captain. ‘I have not money. I cannot pay lawyer.’

‘There would be nothing to pay,’ Alan said.

‘Then who pay?’ Again the wariness.

‘Someone else will pay.’

The captain interjected, ‘Is there any reason you cannot tell him who, Mr Maitland?’

‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘My instructions are not to reveal the person’s name. I can only tell you it is someone who is sympa-thetic and would like to help.’

‘There are sometimes good people,’ the captain said. Apparently satisfied, he nodded reassuringly to Duval.

Remembering Senator Deveraux and the Senator’s motives, Alan had a momentary qualm of conscience. He stilled it, reminding himself of the terms he had insisted on.

‘If I stay, I work,’ Henri Duval insisted, ‘I earn money. I pay back all.’

‘Well,’ Alan said, ‘I expect you could do that if you wanted.’

‘I pay back.’ The young man’s face mirrored eagerness. For the moment mistrust had gone.

‘I have to tell you, of course,’ Alan said, ‘there may be nothing I can do. You understand that?’

Duval appeared puzzled. The captain explained, ‘Mr Maitland will do his best. But perhaps the Immigration will say no… as before.’

Duval nodded slowly. ‘I understand.’

‘One thing occurs to me. Captain Jaabeck,’ Alan said. ‘Have you, since coming here, taken Henri to the Immigration Department and asked for an official hearing of his application to land?’

‘An immigration officer was aboard my ship…’

‘No,’ Alan insisted, ‘I mean apart from that. Have you taken him to the Immigration Building and demanded an official inquiry?’

‘What is the good?’ The captain shrugged. ‘It is always one answer. Besides, in port there is so little time and I have many attentions for the ship. Today is the Christmas holiday. That is why I read Dostoevsky.’

‘In other words,’ Alan said mildly, ‘you haven’t taken him and asked for a full inquiry because you’ve been too busy. Is that it?’ He was careful to keep his voice casual, even though a half-formed idea was taking shape in his mind.

‘That is so,’ Captain Jaabeck said. ‘Of course, if any good might come…’

‘Let’s leave that now,’ Alan said. His thought had been vague and fleeting and might come to nothing. In any case he needed time to read the immigration statutes thoroughly. Abruptly he switched the subject.

‘Henri,’ he told Duval, ‘what I’d like to do now is go over all the things that have happened to you as far back as you can recall. I know that some of it was in the newspaper but there may have been things which were left out, and others you’ve thought of since. Why don’t you begin at the beginning?^ What’s the first thing you remember?’

‘My mother,’ Duval said.

‘What do you remember most about her?’

‘She kind to me,’ Duval said simply. ‘After she die, no one kind again – until this ship.’

Captain Jaabeck had risen and turned away, his back to Alan and Duval. He was slowly filling his pipe.

‘Tell me about your mother, Henri,’ Alan said; ‘what she was like, what she used to talk about, what you did together.’

‘My mother beautiful, I think. When I a little boy she hold me; I listen and she sing.’ The young stowaway spoke slowly, carefully, as if the past were something fragile, to be handled gently lest it disappear. ‘Other time she say: someday we go on ship and find new home. We two go together…’ Haltingly at some moments, with more confidence at others, he talked on.

His mother, he believed, had been the daughter of a French family which had returned to France before his own birth. Why she had no connexion with her parents could only be guessed at. Perhaps it had something to do with his father who (so his mother said) had lived with her briefly in Djibouti then, leaving her, had returned to sea.

Essentially it was the same story which had been told to Dan Orliffe two days before. Throughout Alan listened carefully, prompting where necessary and interjecting a question or retracing where there seemed confusion. But most of the time he watched the face of Henri Duval. It was a convincing face which lighted or mirrored distress as incidents were relived in its owner’s mind. There were moments of anguish too, and a point where tears glistened as the young stowaway described his mother’s death. If this were a witness in court, Alan told himself, I would believe what he says.

As a final question he asked, ‘Why do you want to come here? Why Canada?’ This time it’s sure to be a phoney answer, Alan thought; he’ll probably say it’s a wonderful country and he always wanted to live here.

Henri Duval considered carefully. Then he said, ‘All others say no. Canada last place I try. If not here, I think no home for Henri Duval, ever.’

‘Well,’ Alan said, ‘I guess I got an honest answer.’ He found himself strangely moved and it was an emotion he had not expected. He had come with scepticism, prepared if necessary to go through legal motions, though not expecting to succeed. But now he wanted more. He wanted to do something for Henri Duval in a positive sense; to remove him from the ship and offer him the chance to build a life for himself in a way which fate had denied him until now.

But could it be done? Was there a loophole somewhere, somehow, in immigration law through which this man could be brought in? Perhaps there was, but if so there was no time to lose in finding it.

During the last part of the interview Captain Jaabeck had come and gone several times. Now he was back in the cabin and Alan asked, ‘How long will your ship remain in Vancouver?’

‘It was to have been five days. Unfortunately there are engine repairs and now it will be two weeks, perhaps three.’

Alan nodded. Two or three weeks was little enough, but better than five days. ‘If I’m to represent Duval,’ he said, ‘I must have written instructions from him.’

‘Then you will have to put down what is needed,’ Captain Jaabeck said. ‘He can write his name, but that is all.’

Alan took out a notebook from his pocket. He thought for a moment, then wrote:

I, Henri Duval, am at present being detained on the Motor Vessel Vastervik at La Pointe Pier, Vancouver, BC. I hereby make application for permission to be landed at the above port of entry and I have retained Alan Maitland of the firm of Lewis and Maitland to act as counsel for me in all matters pertaining to this application.

The captain listened carefully as Alan read the words aloud, then nodded. ‘That is good,’ he told Duval. ‘If Mr Maitland is to help, you must put your name to what he has written.’

Using a pen which the captain supplied, Henri Duval slowly and awkwardly signed the notebook page in a childish, sprawling hand. Alan watched impatiently. His one thought now was to get away from the ship and examine more thoroughly the fleeting idea which had occurred to him earlier. He had a sense of mounting excitement. Of course, what he had in mind would be a long shot. But it was the kind of long shot which might, just might, succeed.

Part 7 The Hon Harvey Warrender

Chapter 1

The brief respite of Christmas had sped by as if it had never been.

On Christmas Day the Howdens had gone to early Communion and, after returning home, received guests until lunch-time – mostly official callers and a few family friends. In the afternoon the Lexingtons had driven over, and the Prime Minister and Arthur Lexington spent two hours closeted privately, discussing arrangements for Washington. Later, Margaret and James Howden talked by transatlantic telephone to their daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren in London, who were spending Christmas together. By the time everyone had spoken to everyone else it was a lengthy call and, glancing at his watch at one point, James Howden was glad that his wealthy industrialist son-in-law, and not himself, would receive the bill. Later still, the Howdens dined quietly by themselves and afterwards the Prime Minister worked alone in his study while Margaret watched a movie on television. It was the sad, gentle James Hilton story Goodbye, Mr Chips, and Margaret was reminded nostalgically that she and her husband had seen it together in the 1930s, but now the star, Robert Donat, and its author were long dead, and nowadays the Howdens no longer went to movies… At 11.30 after saying goodnight, Margaret went to bed, while James Howden continued to work until 1 AM.

Milly Freedeman’s Christmas Day had been less arduous, but also less interesting. She had wakened late and, after some mental indecision, went to a church service but not Communion. In the afternoon she took a taxi to the home of a former girlfriend from Toronto, now married and living in Ottawa, who had invited Milly for Christmas dinner. There were several small children in the household, who became trying after a while and, later still, boredom set in at the inevitable talk of child management, domestic help, and the cost of living. Once more – as she had on other occasions – Milly realized she was not fooling herself in believing that scenes of so-called domestic bliss held no charm for her. She preferred her own comfortable apartment, independence, and the work and responsibility she enjoyed. Then she thought: maybe I’m just getting old and sour, but all the same it was a relief when it became time to go. Her friend’s husband drove her home and, on the way, made tentative advances which Milly rejected firmly.

Throughout the day she had thought a good deal about Brian Richardson, wondering what he was doing and if he would telephone. When he failed to call, her disappointment was intense.

Common sense warned Milly against deeper emotional involvement. She reminded herself of Richardson’s marriage, the unlikelihood of anything permanent between the two of them, her own vulnerability… But the image persisted, daydreams ousting reason, an echo of softly whispered words: I want you, Milly I don’t know any other way to say it, except I want you… And in the end it was this thought which became, deliciously and dreamily, her last remembrance of the waking day.