The High Road (8 page)

“I derive pleasure from so few things in life these days, but periodically going a few rounds with Rumplun is one of them,” Angus declared as we headed for the car and the drive back to Cumberland.

Muriel and I met with Pete1 and Pete2 at the new campaign headquarters. On twenty-four hours’ notice, Muriel had asked our constituency office landlord to rent us the vacant store next door for the McLintock election campaign HQ. By then, we had raised a grand total of $147.32, which, for the Cumberland-Prescott Liberal Association, set a new high-water mark. On the strength of such impressive fundraising, the landlord agreed. The storefront actually had an adjoining door to the constituency office, so moving into the campaign space consisted of the two Petes loading up wheeled office chairs with various bits of
campaign-related debris and rolling it next door. By Monday afternoon, Cumberland Graphics had installed a simple red sign that shouted “Re-Elect Angus McLintock!” The exclamation mark had been Muriel’s idea to ensure that voters read the sign with the appropriate enthusiasm. There was no reference to the Liberal Party on the sign. Angus’s personal popularity easily surpassed that of the party, particularly in C-P, so we played to our strengths.

Muriel, Lindsay, and I had agreed that the two Petes were ready to assume more onerous responsibilities on this campaign than they shouldered the last time around. They managed the canvass back in October largely because I really had no other option then. If you have only two volunteers, they do the canvass. It had taken a while for the citizens of Cumberland-Prescott to accept two canvassers who looked like they’d auditioned for the Sex Pistols and been rejected as too extreme. Despite hypnosis, dream therapy, and hours of counselling, I’d still not been able to exorcise the vision of the two Petes door-to-dooring in the early part of that campaign. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but barely. They eventually evolved into quite good canvassers by the end of the campaign, uncovering at least a dozen Liberal voters despite Mohawks, facial piercings, and, occasionally, cosmetics.

This time, the plan was to have the two Petes coordinate all the campaign volunteers. We thought they were up to it and they agreed. By working on Angus’s staff in the constit office for the last few months, they’d come to know many in the community, and more importantly, the community had come to know them (rather than fearing and fleeing them, as many had at the outset). Muriel’s prodding had worked, and they’d toned down their punk wardrobe, particularly when they were working. In our meeting, Pete1 sported just an eyebrow piercing, a tongue stud, and
Angus!
stencilled in red on his hairless head. Pete2 wore nice khakis, an oxford cloth button-up, a Liberal red nose ring, fluorescent pink Doc Martens, and blue hair coiffed neatly. Clearly they were in transition.

The news that Angus was in the race spread quickly. In fact, when we’d finished our meeting elevating the two Petes to volunteer coordinators, there were ten volunteers waiting patiently in the reception area to report for duty. I was stunned, and initially I couldn’t believe it. But after interrogating the assembled mob for ten minutes I was forced to admit that it all seemed on the up and up. Unsolicited Liberal volunteers showing up on day one of the campaign … in Cumberland-Prescott? Maybe the local political landscape was shifting beneath our feet – except, of course, that the local Conservatives could count on volunteers in the hundreds. Still, Pete1 and Pete2 leapt into their new duties and took control of enrolling the volunteers. Muriel, the den mother and hard-headed political strategist, just sat back and beamed.

But winning the riding was not the first priority. Angus hadn’t yet even been nominated as the Liberal candidate. Incumbents are rarely challenged for their own nominations but it had happened in the past. And these were strange times politically. We could take nothing for granted. By moving ahead and opening the campaign office, we hoped to discourage any other closeted Liberals from jumping into the nomination race. It was perhaps a little aggressive to hold a news conference and then open a campaign office without the official nomination. I worried briefly that we might be violating Liberal Party rules. I raised this concern with Muriel. “Don’t know, don’t care” was all she said. Good enough for me.

As the only surviving executive member of the nearly moribund Cumberland-Prescott Liberal Association, Muriel had the authority to call the nomination meeting for Wednesday. We reserved the Cumberland Community Centre next door to the Riverfront Seniors’ Residence.

I slid behind my desk after closing my office door and reached for the phone. Yes, I actually had an office with a door. If this had been broadly known, I’d have been the envy of most other campaign managers across the country regardless of political stripe. Most had only a trestle table in the middle of a cramped
and crowded room.

“News desk, Fontaine here,” crackled over the phone.

“André, it’s Daniel Addison.”

“Hey Daniel, I was just going to call you. What did you make of my piece in the
Globe
last week?”

“It was a great story, André. You nailed it. I particularly liked ‘Quixotic dash up to Ottawa’ and ‘potent political partnership.’ Loved it,” I gushed. “You must have been thrilled to get it into the
Globe
.”

“It’s always good to go national. My editor here likes the profile it gives the
Crier
, and it brings in a bit more coin,” he explained. “So what have you got for me? What’s the word?”

“Well, you’ve always done right by us so I wanted to give you a heads-up about the Liberal nomination meeting.”

“Wednesday at the community centre? I already heard about it. I’ll probably be there, but if Angus is running unopposed, as I’ve heard, it’s somewhat anticlimactic. Not much news there after we ran his news conference story this morning.”

“I think it’ll be worth your while to be there. And I’d have your camera with you if I were you. The meeting is in the community centre but I think you’re going to want to be outside, on the shore beneath the meeting room window. And don’t be late or you’ll miss it.”

“I hear you. Is any other journo getting this message?” André asked.

“Nope. It’s all yours,” I confirmed. “And André?”

“Yo.”

“Thanks for not splashing my abominable snowman shots from the news conference all over the front page. I’m sure you got some great photos that I’ll gladly take off your hands.”

“Well, I don’t make the photo calls, the editor does. But, you know, she can only choose from the shots I provide. You’re welcome. It looked like you’d had quite a morning. But I think I’ll hold onto the pics just the same, in case Angus wants them for his next newsletter.”

——

On Wednesday afternoon we all gathered in the Panorama Room of the Cumberland Community Centre. Like most Cumberland buildings on the shore of the Ottawa River, the Panorama Room had a wall of windows overlooking the ice. The clear sky let the sun stream in, warming the room. In the previous two days, the membership of the Cumberland-Prescott Liberal Association had swelled from five to nearly sixty. Most of them showed up for the meeting. Forty-five of the new members lived next door with Muriel in the Riverfront Seniors’ Residence. We’d chosen the community centre for the nomination meeting to make it easier for our elderly contingent of staunch McLintock supporters to be there. By the time of the meeting, no other candidates had filed nomination papers so the path was clear for a McLintock coronation.

I armed Muriel up to the microphone and retreated to the back of the room.

“Friends, we have a historic opportunity in this campaign to end, once and for all, the Conservative stranglehold on Cumberland-Prescott. Many have argued that it was a fluke, an aberration, a violation of the natural order that our Angus McLintock won this seat last time around. If we’re honest with ourselves, perhaps it was a twist of fate. But this time, let’s make it real. Let’s stop the Tory juggernaut in its tracks and send honest Angus McLintock back to the House of Commons.”

At this point, Muriel gave me a subtle nod before continuing to whip up the crowd. I slipped out the back door and dialled Angus’s cellphone as the prearranged signal. Angus briefly answered and then ended the call. I stepped back into the room, and seconds later, through the window, I could hear an engine turning over.

“Back where he belongs. Angus McLintock brought down a deceitful and duplicitous government when against all odds, he made a courageous journey up the frozen river to cast his vote – the very vote that broke the deadlock and brought the
Tories to their knees. Friends, out on that same river, I give you Angus McLintock, the Member of Parliament for Cumberland-Prescott.”

Muriel stepped aside and cast a trembling hand towards the window. All eyes turned towards the river. But all we saw was ice. All ears, even the many with hearing aids, could now hear an engine struggling to start. It would sputter to life, idle briefly, and then die out. After a pause, the engine sprang to life again and revved at what sounded to me like full throttle. Uh-oh. Even I knew that full throttle probably wasn’t the way to go.

An instant later
Baddeck 1
shot along the ice from behind a point of land to the east. The crowd creaked to its feet and cheered. I couldn’t see Angus in the cockpit where he normally resided when driving the hovercraft. Then I saw why. He was being dragged across the ice by the hovercraft as he clung for dear life to the stern rope. He managed to look our way and raise a hand in a feeble greeting as he hurtled out of sight beyond an outcropping of rock to the west. The audience just kept cheering wildly as if it were all planned. One look at Muriel would have told them it was not. She had one hand over her mouth while she gamely returned Angus’s wave with the other.

I burst out the door, flew down the outside stairs to the ice, and took off after
Baddeck 1
. In the distance, I heard the engine abruptly change pitch and then stop. When I rounded the point, I found Angus, caked in snow, leaning into the engine compartment.

“Damn Canada Post to hell and back!” he cried when I arrived on the scene. Angus seemed none the worse for his harrowing trip along the ice.

“What’s Canada Post got to do with it?” I asked, looking around for a malevolent letter carrier.

“I’ve been awaiting the arrival of a starter motor from Illinois, but in its infinite wisdom, Canada Post has seen fit to hold it at the border to make sure it’s not infested with anthrax or any number of other life-threatening substances.”

“Right …” I prodded. I still didn’t get it. “Go on …”

Angus looked impatient as if further explanation was unnecessary.

“If the starter had arrived when it was supposed to, I’d not have been thrashed over the ice by my own creation. I could have started the engine from the comfort of the cockpit rather than standin’ astern to yank on the blasted pull cord.”

“But why did it take off on its own?”

“Well, I’m not guiltless in the affair, I suppose. I managed to flood the engine, so you of course know the remedy for that.”

“Of course I do. Doesn’t everybody?” I paused thoughtfully. “Okay, no, I really don’t know.”

“I figured not. You must fully open the throttle to dry out a flooded carburetor. So I opened her up and the damnable engine started right off the bat. The possessed craft took off and I had only time to snag the stern painter and hang on.”

“What’s painting got to do with it?”

“You don’t spend much time around boats, do you? The stern painter is the nautical term for the rope at the back,” Angus explained, ever the teacher.

“Okay, I get that part now, but how did you stop it?”

“I pulled myself up the rope, shoved my hand under her skirt, and managed to spill enough air from the plenum to make the beast settle on the ice and grind to a halt. Then I reached up and knocked one of the spark plug leads off the engine and the cursed thing died.”

“We’d better get back. Muriel may have resorted to card tricks by now,” I suggested. “And if you ever tell this story during the campaign, please don’t repeat the phrase ‘I shoved my hand under her skirt.’”

“Aye. Surely no good can come of that,” Angus agreed.

On his signal, I pulled the starter cord while Angus stayed in the cockpit. Naturally, it started immediately. I climbed into the passenger seat without falling, and we hovered back to the community centre. The Panorama Room’s window hung over the ice
and I could see many wrinkled foreheads pressed against the glass and many leathery hands clapping. Angus was still covered in snow from his ordeal so I grabbed a corn broom I’d found leaning near the back door and had Angus stand with his arms outstretched. It looked like he was being scanned with a metal detector by super-vigorous airport security as I swept the snow off him.

I finally noticed André Fontaine standing on the outside steps with his camera in his hand and his index finger twitching. Uh-oh.

“Don’t tell me, André. You were standing right there for whole show and now have half a dozen good shots of Angus and his unique approach to piloting a hovercraft,” I said.

“Nope, you’re wrong. I actually got about twenty-five good ones. The shutter speed on this thing is great.”

I didn’t feel I could call upon his generosity twice in one week. I just nodded in resignation.

Two minutes later Angus was standing before the Cumberland-Prescott Liberal faithful.

“Well, that was a wee bit of a drag,” he started. Laughter all round. “Happy New Year to you all and I thank you for coming out on what is traditionally a holiday. This hastily called election just doesn’t give us much flexibility on timing.”

He went on to cover the major points of his principled approach to representing the riding by putting the interests of the nation ahead of all else. But he was preaching to the converted, and it didn’t really matter what he said. They loved him and very nearly derailed his talk by interrupting every third sentence or so with a spontaneous outburst of applause.

Then Angus sprung the red ribbon idea on them. And on us. Muriel and I had been wondering how we were going to produce lawn signs when we really hadn’t raised any money yet. Angus solved that problem for us towards the end of his remarks.