Only the most suspicious of
neighbourhood busy-bodies spying through their sheer window
curtains, would have found anything remarkable about the telephone
service van parked at the corner beneath the yellowing lindens. Only
the most paranoid of nosy-parkers would have found anything upsetting
by the sight of the individual behind the wheel, a stout man of
middling stature, of middling appearance, of middling appeal, sipping
his Tim Horton's extra-large double-double in one hand while adeptly
playing Angry Birds on his Blackberry in the other, the sounds
of squawking birds and snorting piglets a counterpoint to the low
level radio station wavering like white noise. The open carton of
sugary Timbits resting on the officious looking papers on the
dashboard underscored this reality, all signs and sounds of normality
to the average perception. But the man in the Montreal Expo's
baseball cap was only vaguely concerned with the piglet problem in
his palm, he was waiting for the appearance of his subjects. He had
already memorized the information on his phone, the sub-stats
as he called them: Duncan Strand, 53, owner of Strand Cordage
Ltd., and Lafcadio & Co., Books,
Amelia Strand, 40, part-time CEGEP teacher and free-lance translator,
dog named Hugh. No pics. Addresses, phone numbers, car licence
number, model and colour. Landlady, Mrs Shimoda below. The
information had been sent to him late the previous night. A document
retrieval operation. Simple. Clean. He'd given it the name, Operation
Labrador, but with the
appearance in his side mirror of sleepy-eyed Duncan coming down the
stairs with Hugh, he had thought perhaps the name Operation
Wiener Dog would have been more
apt.
Duncan
noticed the van but didn't give it a second, let alone a third
thought. His mind was elsewhere. Hugh sniffed at the sparse grass at
the base of a maple tree, while Duncan rubbed his stiff neck and
stretched it from side to side producing the sound of cracking bone
which he had learned was really only air released from the joint, or
so he was meant to believe. His jaw was tight and his hips were sore.
He had not slept well. Too many concerns. Too many interactions.
Although he could turn his personality up when required, he was truly
an introvert's introvert, happiest when sitting behind his desk
surrounded by his books and papers, cataloguing and describing older
volumes, their bibliographic anomalies, their surface sufferings and
indignities, their inner logic of signatures and size.
Hugh
dragged him towards the corner of the park sniffing and inspecting
along the way.
The
man in the van sipped his coffee thinking that his subject didn't
look his age. He put it down to being childless. Nothing like having
kids to age you. The responsibilities, the worries, the demands.
Wiener dogs. Not much responsibility there. A full size Dachshund was
funny in itself he thought, but a miniature one was hilarious.
Operation Draft Stop. He
chuckled at his own wit as Duncan and Hugh disappeared around the
corner.
Duncan
couldn't match Hugh's jauntiness this morning—a brisk liveliness
that belied his short legs—but he enjoyed watching him perform his
rituals. How dogs parcelled out their pee, a little bit here, a
little bit there, was a wonder to him. Canine communication.
Invisible graffiti. He felt little adorable Hugh suited his
personality, their personality. Much like them, he felt Hugh
was an introvert but able to interact with considerable aplomb when
needs must. Parties, family gatherings, professional meetings all
required that effort of will to shed the protective skin and open
oneself to the quandaries of life. Hugh rose to the occasion—as
much as he could rise to anything—though Hugh's professional
associations were not quite what he would call demanding—his
veterinarian, Susan, the only one.
The
fog was beginning to thin he noticed. They walked up towards
Dorchester and Hugh inspected the shrubbery and grass at the corner
while Duncan blinked and yawned towards the upper reaches of the RCMP
head office with its aerials and communication devices hiding in the
fog. He wondered what they must listen to, detect, uncover. We live
in a world of terror plots and uncertainty he thought. How simple it
was in his childhood in the 1960s, a world sans graffiti, sans
terror, sans plots. Hugh pulled him away with a zestful interest in a
garden gnome peeking at him, eye to eye, from behind a miniature
garden fence. Of course there was the 1970s Québec crisis. Yes,
graffiti, plots, the terror of mail boxes. Hugh pulled him further
on past the early twentieth century limestone townhouses, many now
divided into flats. Tribalism was rife, his Father used to say,
especially in the suburbs. Duncan had never been one for groups.
Somehow, he didn't think introverts were much interested in
tribalism—more, I-balism, or eye-ball-ism he thought with a half
smile and a turn of the head.
Upon
seeing a wall of books through a living room window, his thoughts
spun away from the gravity of the past, triggering a memory of a
dream he had had last night: he was running with Joseph Campbell, the
scholar and comparative mythologist, running with books in his arms,
trying not to drop them, but failing in that endeavour, looking back,
stopping to bend down and retrieve their splayed forms upon the wet
grass, and all the time Campbell was telling him to leave them behind, they
would help delay the shadows gaining upon them. He shook his head in
bewilderment as Hugh did his business. He hadn't thought of Campbell
for a dog's age. He had read his books back in the 1970s and 80s, and
attended his numerous guest public lectures at Loyola College in the
early 80s, and even attended one weekend seminar, mesmerized
throughout by his inspiring rich throaty east coast drawl—a voice
that at times reminded him of Al Pacino—his mannerisms and of
course, his extraordinary vast knowledge. But Duncan had left his
comparative mythology period behind him. The four volume Masks
of God were in an Australian
Shiraz wine box with similar volumes on religion and mythology. His
soiled, annotated softcover copy of The Hero With A
Thousand Faces inscribed by the
author, rested upon a stack of other Campbell titles gathering
residual dust behind works by Thomas Pynchon and John Updike. It had
been awhile. Life got in the way. Or was the way.
As Hugh
stood by waiting for Duncan to pick up after him as was the ritual,
Duncan watched the light reflections of the passing cars behind him upon the
limestone houses, thinking of the slide-shows Campbell provided
during his lectures. He was like a magician, standing off to the
side, talking with expressive gestures, casually walking close to the
projection to point out a feature, or emphasis the importance of a
symbol. Hugh pulled on the leash, bringing Duncan to the immediate
present. He bent down with a small black plastic bio-degradable bag
to perform his urban responsibilities.
They
walked on, making their full circle around the block. He remembered
his brother Gavin, the one who hardly ever looked at a book, and yet
the one who was able to come up with the lyrics to his tunes.
Whenever he himself tried to write lyrics, the words seemed to get in
the way. Gavin the extroverted introvert, however, could always find the words. They came
to him. He felt them. But he was always pushing, pushing, pushing. He
pushed Duncan out of their Mother's womb first he did—probably
because he was in the way—and pushed himself into the next
dimension pursuing that hero's journey he knew nothing about and yet
everything, crashing his souped-up sports car in the early morning mist all those years ago.
Duncan
and Hugh arrived back at their door, the journey's end. The service
van remained in place but was of no concern to him. His thoughts had
shifted, thoughts now preoccupied with his recent bibliographic
discoveries, the Latin text and the manuscript in code, and with what
Joseph Campbell—or his unconscious—was trying to tell him.
*
The
breakfast room was empty, so Jerome began to investigate the chafing
dishes on the large oak sideboard; fluffy scrambled eggs, twists of
fatty bacon like the ears of giant pugilists, pork sausages in their
post-sizzle sweat, home-fries huddled like warm bricks ready for the
mortar of egg, fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh ground coffee, and
a variety of fresh cut fruit in assorted colourful bowls. Jams and
jellies and a selection of toast, but, no marmalade. A moratorium on
marmalade perhaps.
A
marmalade morning without marmalade was to Jerome, rather anomalous.
A moniker coined, not by direct representation of Seville oranges in
sugary splendour, but by Declan's wife in abstraction, a name which
conjured up sentimental images by Victorian artists like Helen
Allingham or Marcus Stone. A summer garden scene, flowering shrubs,
women on garden benches in long dresses—drapery for the skilled eye
and hand—books and letters on the seats beside them, summer bonnets
and ribbons hanging on the upright, a cat playing with a ball of
yarn, Marmalade Mornings, engraved in italic lettering on a
brass picture frame plaque.
“Dig
in, help yourself, that's what it's there for,” Declan's voice
taking him by surprise, urging him on like a mild mannered drill
Sargent to his grandchildren.
Declan
came along side Jerome like a Spanish Galleon, all elbows. They
filled their respective plates in silence, Jerome noticing a sign of
concern and preoccupation on his patron's face.
After
eating with little conversation other than the references to the
weather and to Beaumont, Declan went over to refill their coffee cups
and when he returned he finally became quite talkative.
“When
I bought Castlebourne, I discovered in the attic rooms among the
discarded furnishings, a wood and leather trunk containing many of
the previous family's historic papers, some account books, letters
and other items fit for the fireplace. Among them were old garden
plans. One included a maze and a list of sayings to be used as points
of contemplation while walking the thing. As far as I know, they
never created the maze.” He drank his coffee pausing as if
recalling the moment when he disturbed the dust of many years and
unearthed the crumbling plans. “So, when I had this place built, I
decided to carry through, bring it to fruition so to speak. We found
a good stone worker and had the sayings carved. The trees took a bit
longer, but, as you have seen, it's not too shabby.”
“And
the sundial, was that part of the plan?”
Declan
looked down into his steaming coffee, blinking like a discomfited
chess player. “Well, the sundial was part of the old herb garden at
Castlebourne, surrounded by thyme, parsley, marjoram, sage, basil,
Valerian, Lovage, garlic and God knows what else. It's still growing
as we speak but now with a statue at the centre. A little water
feature.” He finished his coffee. “The original maze plans called
for a pedestal with a top of rare black polished obsidian, a sort of
scrying-stone my wife believes. If it existed, we haven't found it.”
Scrying-stone. Polished obsidian. It conjured up images of Waterhouse's
painting The Magic Circle, or Burn-Jones's The Beguiling of
Merlin. “I envy your discoveries,” Jerome said over his
crossed knife and fork. “Do you know who drew up the original
plans?”
“Yes,
it was a woman named Catherine Fenton. My wife knows more about it
than I.” Declan turned as if he heard something. A few seconds
later there was a knock on the door and a tall, dark featured,
casually dressed man entered.
“Harry,
grab yourself a coffee,” Declan said, “and come and meet our
friend the artist, Jerome van Starke.”
Harry
ignored Declan and shook Jerome's hand like a cheerful sceptic. “So,
Jerome, can I put in an order for a Mona Lisa for my wife's powder
room? Just kidding, mate. Nice to meet you.” Then he sauntered over
to the sideboard to pour himself a coffee.
“So
Dec, what's the score?” Harry said clinking a spoon in his
mug.
“Well,
I think everything's arranged. Have you brought your latest drawings
and plans?”
“I
wouldn't be here otherwise.”
Declan
turned to Jerome as Harry sat opposite him. “Harry here was my old
childhood friend in Point St. Charles, before he left me for a better
neighbourhood when we were about ten. Never saw him again. Strange
that.” They both chuckled. “Then, about twenty years ago, there I
was at a cocktail party and I hear a laugh. I turn around and see a
tall man across the room talking to the hostess. I knew that laugh. I
remembered it like a face. So I began a conversation with him and
asked if he had a younger brother named Harrington. The man looked at
me wide-eyed. Yes he did. An architect. Presently rediscovering the
family roots in the Caribbean and designing fancy homes for the rich
and famous. His elder brother provided me with a phone number and
well, we've been in business ever since. Hotels and Condos
throughout the Caribbean and quite a few splendid homes. Harry's one
of the best.”
“That's
. . .” Jerome tried to find the right words as he gazed upon the alluring, smooth, clean-shaven head of Harry.
“Amazing,
isn't it,” Harry said, jostling Declan's shoulder like a long lost
brother. “This man's senses are acute Jerome. Fucking remembered
my laugh over thirty years. Meant to be I guess. Meant to be.”
*
Amelia
dialled Mélisande's number at the library thinking she would catch
her before the preoccupations of the day tied her down.
“What's
up?” Mélisande said trying to sound cheerful.
“We
wanted to invite you over for dinner tonight, just the three of us.
It's been too long. Love to see you. We can discuss the manuscript
papers Duncan dropped off the other day too. How about it? 6:30. Just
bring yourself.”
“I'd
love to. Thanks. I have Duncan's discovery in the laptop bag beside
me here at the circulation desk. I really haven't had a chance to
delve into it, so that would work for me.”
“Excellent.
See you at 6:30. Have a great day, and don't let the eccentrics get
you down!”
Mélisande thanked her and rang off. Looking around at the empty library bathed in muted rose coloured light, she had to admit, libraries did tend to attract them,
*
A
ringtone of Cheap Trick's The Dream Police alerted the man in
the service van he had received a text message. Having abandoned
Angry Birds, he reached out and finagled the device to read
his electronic missive.
abort op. new info. doc.
elsewhere.
The key
was in the ignition and he pulled away from the curb with relief and
a knackering for a fresh honey cruller.
Mrs.
Shimoda noticed its departure and returned to her crossword puzzle,
the female jig-saw piece held firmly between thumb and forefinger, a
portion of a pink blossom in need of a male piece for connection and
oneness.
© ralph patrick mackay
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