The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,8
mean to be insulting, Theresa, or minimize its importance to you, but it’s less than what we’d normally consider.”
Theresa glanced at Jennie, her eyes begging.
“You will talk to Uncle, though, won’t you?” Jennie asked.
Ava sighed. She knew there wasn’t any way her mother would accept no for an answer. “Okay, I’ll talk to him. No promises, though.”
“Thank you,” Theresa said.
“And then there is our fee. We pay all our own expenses — all of them — but we keep thirty percent of everything we collect. Are you okay with that?”
“What if you don’t get anything back?”
“The expenses are still our cost, not yours.”
Theresa nodded. “Getting seventy percent of something is better than one hundred percent of nothing.”
“Do you need to talk to your family?”
“No, I can make the decision, and I think you’re being fair.”
“Okay, then. I still need to talk to Hong Kong to get the go-ahead.”
“Ava, can’t you just tell her now?” Jennie said.
“Mummy, I can’t.”
“You’ll do your best with Uncle, though?”
“My best, but I’m not making any promises.”
“Ava,” Jennie persisted.
“No promises,” Ava repeated.
( 3 )
Labour Day weekend has a peculiar impact on the Canadian psyche, and Ava wasn’t immune to it. The weekend represents the end of summer, the start of a new school year for virtually every child in the country, and the turning of new pages in many lives. It marks, very specifically, the time for play to end and for work to recommence in a dedicated way. Having a plan in mind would be a good start, but Ava didn’t have one. She was all loose ends, suffering from the same kind of melancholy that January 2 often induces in people.
She met Maria at the bus drop-off at Rama on Friday night. They lazed their way through the weekend, eating, drinking, walking, reading, and making love. Maria was one of the least demanding people Ava had ever met. She seemed content with doing little things — in fact, doing nothing at all — as long as it was in Ava’s company. It made Ava feel guilty at times, and she found herself overcompensating by planning activities she wouldn’t consider if she were on her own. So it was that on Sunday she drove them north to Midland, to the Martyrs’ Shrine.
They were both Catholic, both wore crucifixes, and, in their own quiet ways, both often prayed. Maria, like Jennie, rarely missed Sunday Mass, but knowing Ava’s aversion to the official structure of the Church, forewent it on her weekend trips to the north. So it came as a surprise when Ava suggested they drive to Midland. Ava debated asking her mother to join them but, knowing that the three of them would be sharing a car ride back to the city on Monday, decided one trip together was all she could handle.
They left the cottage just after eight, and the roads were so quiet they reached the shrine just before nine, in time for the ten-o’clock Mass. They wandered the spacious grounds and then stood at the back of the church reading the grisly details of the martyrs’ deaths. Most of them had been tortured at length by the Hurons. Maria was especially taken by the suffering endured by Jean de Brébeuf, and insisted on reading the details aloud to Ava.
Maria was Colombian, a graduate in English and business from the University of Bogotá. She was an assistant trade commissioner at Colombia’s office in Toronto, on a four-year assignment with two years left to go — a fact they didn’t discuss. Ava couldn’t understand how, with all that education, Catholicism still flowed so vigorously through Maria’s veins. For her own part, Ava had never had a true passion for the religion, and the Church’s position on sexual orientation watered down any other emotional pull she might feel. Still, she found comfort from time to time in prayer, and she was completely tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs.
The church filled quickly, mainly with summer visitors, Ava assumed. The church was built almost entirely of wood in the manner of the great longhouses the Hurons and Algonquins had once built. Even the roof was patched with enormous sheets of dried birch bark. The service began and Maria quickly fell into its rhythm, her face beaming, her voice loudly echoing the refrains, her arms held out, palms turned up. Ava’s mind began to wander five minutes in, as she replayed the options in her life.
She thought again about May Ling and her offer. It was flattering, and