After a nod and a hello to the
bookstore clerk, a fresh face filling in on a slow Saturday morning,
Pavor busied himself in looking for a certain title by Boris Vian.
Being so close to The Word bookstore on his way back from
picking up bagels and feeding Clio—whose feline dismay had been
assuaged by a dish of food, soft words, and a gentle stroke
down her spine—it was inevitable that his desire to replace Vian's
The Froth on the Daydream, the small 1970 Penguin Modern
Classic with the cover image by Felix Labisse, a book he'd purchased
from The Word thirty years ago and had misplaced or lost, and
had, for the last few years, been quietly looking for, would draw him
to that cave of delight, that veritable cornucopia of the world's
voices offered with a Zen-like calm, a bookstore whose shelves held
the quiverings of countless words ready to take flight with the
turning of a page and escape out the door between the supple fingers
of a contented customer to which he hoped he was one.
“What was it with Beckett and the
letter M anyway?” a male voice behind him asked.
Startled from his romantic musings
about the pursuit of secondhand books, Pavor exchanged a brief glance
with the clerk, and then turned around to see a middle aged man
sitting in the low slung upholstered chair parallel to the display
table laden with history books. The man's greying moustache was
exemplary, full, finely trimmed, and ever so slightly tweaked at the
ends. It hovered beneath his long nose like a circus canopy over the
stage of his open mouth. His large horn-rimmed glasses engaged the
brim of his baseball cap, one that sported a logo like a street sign,
a dark silhouette of a faceless man's head with a bowler hat, and a
line drawn across it on the angle, an heraldic bend, the logo for the
music group Men Without Hats. Worn with irony, or as some kind
of emblem of antiestablishmentarianism, Pavor could only wonder.
“Magdalen Mental Mercyseat, Murphy,
Malone, Molloy, Moran, Mahood . . . and yes, Macmann. There are
others I'm sure.”
Pavor thought the man's patent, hadn't
quite pended.
He noticed he was holding a book
entitled Visions by Leonid
Andreyev, the hardcover dustjacket revealed an image of the
bearded author looking much like a 1970s French Canadian folk singer.
“Can't you just see the stiff-haired
Sam sitting cross-legged at a café table in Paris, tweed
jacket, scarf, a demi-tasse before him, a thick white cigarette
trailing smoke, those striking grey-blue eyes looking past you?”
The man looked towards Pavor as if expecting an answer. “I had the
good fortune of meeting him. Yes, Paris, 1979, Montparnasse. He
signed a copy of Godot for me. Such nice hands.” The man
returned his attention to the Andreyev leaving the clerk and Pavor
holding the silence between them like a sheet ready to be folded.
Pavor began to recall the images of
Beckett whose multi-lined and deeply etched face was like a road map of all the disillusions
he'd surveyed. An iconic image, a caricature of all things modernist and literary. Images of authors unsettled him. Photographs could rarely go beneath heir split-second captured surfaces. His own author photograph for his publisher was just
such a facade. His had been poised, looking stalwart,
strong-willed, in control, and yet at the time, he'd been fragile,
his will power crumbling like burnt toast—he could barely get out
the door. He often looked at author photos and wondered what inner
frailties gnawed at their self-confidence beneath their bitmapped
images.
Pavor returned his eyes to the shelf
before him, but could see no Vians between the Vernes and the Vidals,
and having no interest in either of those authors, it increased his
frustration seeing them cheek by jowl.
“Excuse me, but are you P. K.
Loveridge?” the clerk enquired from the built-in cash desk beneath
the stairs, a position that reminded Pavor of a Dickensian workplace,
something akin to Kenge and Carboy.
“Yes, that's me.”
“There's a couple of books of yours
here we'd like you to sign, if it's no problem that is.”
“Sure, no problem.” He came around
to the little counter while the clerk rummaged behind him for the
books. “You wouldn't have any books by Boris Vian by any chance?”
Placing the two softcover volumes on
the counter beside a volume on wine, the clerk looked towards the
front window as if daylight would help his memory search the storage
shelves upstairs. “Nothing at the moment. They go pretty quick.”
“Umm, I bet.” Pavor began to sign
the copy of Olivaster Moon when he heard the approach of the
lugubrious man with the moustache.
“Ah, a writer I see.” The man was
taller than Pavor expected. “What is your style Sir?” He didn't
wait for an answer. “Are you a practitioner of dirty realism, that
efflorescence of rural ruminations? That migratory method from the
midwest, rural Gothic, hayseed haiku if you will? Or perhaps you
proffer examples of real dirtiness, British influence, lad lit yes? A
progenitor of bawdy metropolitan graphic with a touch of graffiti
rap?” The man, whose clothes carried the scent of the coffee house,
paused. “Esoteric eroticism perhaps?Vampiric youth narratives? Regional, coming of age reconstructions? Family saga fandangoes? YA lite, or narratives as clean and uncluttered as a staged condominium open house?" The man chuckled like a critic. "Or are you one of those coffin flies who scuttle along the edges of famous crypts in order to co-opt an historical life for a story?”
The clerk, a Page to Pavor's Knight,
came to his defence. “Mr. Loveridge writes spy thrillers with
nuances of noir crime, Fitz. Haven't you read the Rex series?”
Fitz ran a hand over his enviable moustache and looked sideways at Pavor. “Ah, I see, a novelist who
works for a year to produce a book that's consumed in an evening. Your poor readers Sir, they must suffer to wait. Or, to reread. Are
your books worthy of rereading?”
Pavor was at ease with eccentrics. Like
players of solitaire, their cards were on the table. “Well, I don't
know. I hope so.” He closed the signed copy. “I can tell
you, I can't reread them if that's any help.” He smiled.
“Ah, well put Sir, well put.
Unfortunately, having not read your work, I can't say I am a bona
fide fan. No autograph seeker here," he said, tapping his plaid shirted chest. "Don't get me wrong,” he said
touching Pavor's arm, “I'm not an urban snob, a snurb as it
were—not to be confused with the snurd which is the slushy
snow that builds up and freezes in the rims of cars and is deposited
along roads and left in parking lots, veritable vehicular defecations,
snow turds, hence snurds—no, I am not a snurb. I'm quite as willing
to delve into the noir as the next man. Yes, give me a Stark, a
Westlake or a Leonard and I'll be content . . . for an hour or
two.” Fitz raised the copy of Andreyev before Pavor's eyes. “Have
you read this author.”
“Andreyev? No, I'm sorry, I haven't.”
He signed the second book, Rex in Arcadia. “I played Russian
roulette once and came up with Gogol. Haven't gone much further than
that.” He hoped that confidence would baffle the eccentric Fitz
enough to make his retreat. “I really must be going. I have a cat
to feed. Nice to meet you Fitz. I'll keep Andreyev in mind.” He
thanked the young clerk and asked him to say hi to his boss for him
and made his way to the door.
“Ah,” Fitz exclaimed, picking up
the book on wine, “it's extraordinary what the humble grape has
achieved is it not? Just think of its shrivelled little cousin, that
desiccated delicacy, the raisin, how . . .” Pavor was out the door, and as he
passed the large front window, he waved to the shadows within seeing
only his dark reflection in the glass. Melisande had told him stories
of peculiar and eccentric library patrons, but secondhand bookshops
also had their share. Especially if a comfortable seat was provided.
Back in his car, Pavor observed the
slender fingers of frost formations on his windshield, constellations
of crystals with inconceivable tenuities, sidereal impressions in
frozen molecules. He remembered his daughter's fascination with
window frost, “winter writing” she'd said, “an unknown
language.” Pavor rested his forehead on the steering wheel and
closed his eyes.
His cell phone rang.
Reluctantly he pulled his phone out. He recognized the number. “Hey Jerome, how's it going?”
“Sorry for calling you on a Saturday
morning. Hope I didn't disturb you.”
“No, not at all. Just out on errands.
How's Thérèse doing”
“She's good. Better every day.
Thanks.” Jerome cleared his throat. Pavor thought he sounded rather
excited. “I just wanted to let you know that the client whose
wife's portrait I painted, heard I was getting married and has
offered to host a celebratory dinner. I told him it was a double
wedding. All the better he said, and when he heard Duncan was the
best man and his wife the bridesmaid, he invited them as well. Six of
us for the night at their country estate. What do you think? The
food will be gourmet.”
“Wow, the perks of your trade eh?
I'll talk to Melisande, but it sounds lovely.”
“He said he'd have his Mercedez Benz
van pick us up on the Sunday after the wedding, and we'll stay over
till Monday or even Tuesday if we'd like.”
Pavor had yet to think of honeymoon
destinations but such a visit seemed a pleasant precursor to a trip
abroad. “Thanks Jerome. Sounds great.”
“Good. I'll talk to you soon. Say hi
to Melisande for me. Ciao.”
Ciao? He hadn't heard Jerome so
animated since he won an arts grant to study in Europe. Pavor started
the car, left the defroster off, and made his way home.
*
Amelia wiped the steam from
the bathroom mirror but her features were still fogged by the remnant
moisture. The words of the doctor came back to her like the steam
returning to the mirror's surface. A liminal state the doctor had
told her. He was stable. They would perform more tests during the
morning and afternoon. She should go home and take care of herself
and then return late afternoon when Duncan would be back in his room.
She sighed deeply and
wrapped a towel around her hair.
The apartment was quiet
without Hugh. Mary had picked him up last night to stay with Uncle
Edward and George III. She hadn't revealed the reason why she needed
a dog sitter. There was nothing they could do to help Duncan, and the
hospital with its inevitable germs was no place for a ninety-two year
old. She didn't want Edward catching some virus. She would drive up
to see them for lunch and reveal all.
Passing the study, she
stopped and looked in at Duncan's desk, a cluttered assemblage of
papers, books, and collectibles he'd acquired over the years. She sat
down in his chair and looked at the bamboo holders full of pens,
pencils, book marks, chopsticks, and the letter openers he liked to
collect, miniature swords and daggers in brass or copper, Victorian
copper paper knives, finely polished multi-coloured wood ones, and
carved exotics from other continents. On the right side of the desk
sat a bowl filled with small sea shells, some pearly and transparent,
others pure white and solid as stone, colourful pebbles, slender
petrified coral pieces, and a small starfish, and sticking out of
them like a pen in a pen holder, a brown and white feather, a feather
with a story. Duncan, alone at his Father's country cabin, had been looking out the living room window at dusk watching a rabbit
munch the grass under a birch tree. The next morning he'd found
the feather where the rabbit had dined, an owl's feather. He'd kept
it as a memento mori. A reminder of the way of nature. She withdrew
it from the shells and gently ran her finger along the soft edge.
Twirling it around she held it like a quill pen, and then,
overwhelmed with a superstition that any action might have an effect
upon Duncan's recovery, she was overcome with a feeling of having
disturbed the spirit inherent in the object, and slipped it back in
place between the shells and stones. She knew it was illogical, but
at such desperate moments in life, the scope of influences became
panoramic and all embracing.
She looked at the small
colour photograph propped on a set of reference books, a photo of
Duncan before she knew him. The year was 1981, he was twenty-two,
slimmer, with longer, darker hair, and sporting gold-rimmed Ray-Ban
aviator glasses slightly out of fashion by that time. He was facing
the camera and standing near a tall mirror, his reflection, an echo
of his lost twin brother Gavin. He called the photograph André
and Me. His little joke. The reason being that for many years in
his late teens and early twenties, he experienced people greeting him
using the name André. A bicyclist passed by, raised his arm and
blurted out, 'Salut André.' Or a pedestrian passed him with a 'bonjours' and a nod as if he knew him. Or from an open car window, a voice
calling out André. Or that occasion on the Metro platform at Berri-UQAM, when a young woman waved and called to him from the other side of the tracks. She had been going east, he west, and the noise of their respective metro trains entering the station had precluded any further verbal interaction. From the inside of his Metro car, he had waved to her, and she'd waved back, separated by an arm's reach. There were other occasions. Each time he'd been caught off guard. Each time he'd been stunned and unable to react quick
enough. Each time he'd been left mystified. And then it stopped. He
never did learn who André was. Never did meet his French
doppelganger. The end.
With failing logic and a
sense of shame she wished it was his doppelganger in the hospital and
not Duncan.
She slumped back in his
chair, crossed her ankles and suddenly felt disconnected from
everything around her. Floating upon a cloud of anxiety, she could
hardly feel the chair. She closed her eyes and consciously breathed
in and out, seeking strength from some hidden reserves of
perseverance. Fearing she had little left, she concentrated, and
visualized a water well, the kind found in old farmsteads, and
imagined herself bringing up a bucket overflowing with replenishing
liquid, and pouring it into a bamboo irrigation trough that fed a
small garden. Breathing deeply, she continued the process until she
drifted off into a light sleep.
Roused with a sense of
falling, she looked at the clock and saw she'd only been asleep for
ten minutes.
She dressed quickly thinking
of the items she should bring back to the hospital. His comb,
toothbrush, fresh boxer shorts, socks. Reading material she
remembered. Yes, she could read to Duncan if it was all right with
the doctors. Going around to his bedside table, she noted his
selected bedtime reading was not promising: a Loeb Classic edition of
the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, My Friend's Book
by Anatole France, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by
George Gissing, and McAlmon's Chinese Opera by Stephen Scobie.
A prime example of his eclectic and wavering interests. She didn't
think she could manage any of them, but did choose the Gissing.
Looking at her own stack of books, she selected a novel she'd been
reading, a collection of short stories and Norton Juster's The
Phantom Tollbooth, one of her
favourite children's books she'd been rereading, a book Duncan had
never read. She thought that it might be just the thing for
him. She could read it to him with a soft voice, fil de voce, like a
bedtime story. It might be just the thing to bring him back to
consciousness.
© ralph patrick mackay
