“What do you mean?”
“He lost the chance to reason with these people, to show them that we are intelligent and are willing to work together for solutions. His tantrum — you’ll see it in the film — led to the inevitable: the logging company pushing forward and Diamond responding with a barricade and court proceedings. Might have gone that way anyway but who knows?”
I nodded but said nothing.
“And he’s made a royal muck-up for the reputation of this university. Just my luck to get a brilliant troublemaker like Diamond. He did good research but he brought a lot of bad press around here with all his hare-brained ideas and causes, and I got some of the blame. I could have killed the man but the bear beat me to it. It’s always better to solve problems in a rational, reasoned way, and not go off the deep end.”
I marvelled at the dichotomy inherent in his last two sentences and the fact that he didn’t seem to see it. “Is that what happened between Leslie and Diamond?”
Davies narrowed his eyes and peered at me.
“What are you getting at?”
“I understand Leslie was in competition with Diamond for tenure since they first arrived. Now that Diamond’s gone I gather she’s a shoe-in to get tenure.”
“He was the better man. Oh sure, their qualifications were about the same, but Diamond struck me as a better researcher and he can’t get pregnant. Leslie, of course, should have had tenure a long time ago. She was very bitter and took it out on Diamond. She’s very good but we have a small budget and not enough tenured positions, so Leslie lost, until now, of course.”
“You’re not worried she’ll get pregnant now?” I asked.
He didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm dripping off my voice.
“Oh well, now that we don’t have Diamond, we can handle it if it happens, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” I said, and then, wanting to avoid controversy, I added, “It couldn’t have been pleasant working with them.”
“It was a pain in the ass, quite frankly. They had a hell of a row about a month before Diamond died. Leslie was getting more and more bitter about tenure, and we couldn’t offer her anything. We suggested she look elsewhere, of course, though we hated to lose her. But everything’s tight and there was nothing out there for her that she wanted. Then Diamond was secretly offered a job in government — increased salary and security. Somehow Leslie found out and tried to persuade him to take it but he’d already refused it. Said he liked small-town life.”
“Why didn’t Leslie apply for the job?”
“That was the source of her anger. She didn’t hear about it until it was too late. It was a little bit under the table, I think. They invited him to apply with all the other public servants, guaranteeing him the job. It wasn’t well-advertised, and Diamond apparently wasn’t about to tell anyone. A bit selfish, I thought, but then he was a selfish man. Anyway, she was livid and he just laughed at her. He really was an asshole where Leslie was concerned, pardon my language. They were lovers once, until he dumped her. But what’s all this got to do with your disks?”
“I don’t know really,” I said. “I guess I’m just fishing.”
At that moment Kevin-buddy returned and Davies took off.
Kevin held out the two films and looked at me as though I was naked. Why did some men do that? If my lecherous thoughts about Patrick could be read as easily I would be mortified. But some guys seemed to thrive on it.
“You a tree hugger?”
“Depends on where the tree is,” I said.
“All right. A witty lady. I can give you a room for a couple of hours but I’ll have to kick you out at two o’clock. I have a whole slew of kids coming in then to edit their assignments.”
He showed me into a tiny viewing area and made sure he brushed up against me in the small space as he handed me the tape. I moved away from him and looked for the button to open the machine so that I could put the tape in.
“It’s not edited or anything so there’s lots of garbage. If you want I’ll stay and help. It can be complicated, this machinery.” His leer was wide enough for a ten-ton truck to drive through.
I gave him my best ice-cold glance, which probably wasn’t very cold or icy because I hate hurting people. Gets me into a lot of trouble, but there it is.
“Isn’t this just a standard machine with pause, play, and stop buttons?”
“Uh well, yeah, I guess it is.”
“Then I can manage it myself, thanks.” I turned my back on him and I heard the door shut quietly behind me. God, I hated sounding bitchy, but how else was I supposed to get rid of a guy like that without kicking him in the nuts?
chapter fifteen
The machine whizzed and whirred and then a large room, like a school gym or auditorium the size of a hockey rink, jumped into view. The camera panned the room slowly. The lighting was soft and dim, but there was no way of knowing if it was day or night as there weren’t any windows in the whole of that gigantic room. The off-white ceilings were very low, giving the impression that this was a basement room. On the stuccoed ceiling some tattered white gauze streamers hung languidly over strings of fairy lights not turned on, presumably leftovers from some previous party.
There were groups of people moving about looking at what appeared to be displays at the back of the room. Someone had arranged hundreds of regulation school-type chairs in neat rows down the length of the room. There was an aisle down the middle and a lectern and seating for eight at the front table. The film picked up the muffled footsteps and the shuffling, laughing, and coughing of fifty people, but the size of the room deadened the sound. The organizers had obviously expected a much bigger crowd.
Most of the first thirty minutes was taken up by speeches from foresters and loggers giving background information and regulations. It was obvious that the timber licence had already been granted and this was purely a public relations effort to sway dissenters to their side.
The audience was unusually passive, and I was beginning to think Kevin-buddy had given me the wrong film when the meeting was suddenly opened to the floor for questioning. It looked as though no one was going to ask anything, but then someone rose to ask the first question.
I was surprised to see the camera swing over to Don Allenby in the front row clearing his throat. His thin voice squeezed around the auditorium like a lost waif, but for all that it was steady and clear, if vaguely apologetic.
“I have a question for the forester, Ray De Roach.”
A tall, thin, mustachioed fellow on the stage nodded his head and said, “It’s Raymond Desrochers.”
“Pardon me. Mr. Desrochers. You’re a biologist and a lumber company employee. You advise the lumber company on forestry issues. Surely, you can understand that the lumber industry has never shown much leadership in doing what’s right. We all know it took decades to get them to even replant after they clear-cut, and then it took decades to convince them that clear-cutting was causing havoc by eroding the rivers and mountains and creating moonscapes where trees would never grow again. I mean no offence, but can you tell me why we should trust the lumber industry to do the right thing when they don’t even know what the right thing is?”
There was a murmur of voices and some applause as Don sat back in his chair and wiped his forehead with a big handkerchief, looking relieved at having gotten his question out. The camera swung over to Raymond Desrochers, who rose from his chair and walked over to the podium.
He took a long time adjusting the mike, fiddling with its height so that he didn’t have to