tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-315470742024-03-20T03:35:18.196-04:00Chumley & Pepys On Books'Sundry jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings' ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.comBlogger254125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-22931654732171048742018-10-20T17:23:00.000-04:002018-10-20T17:42:59.240-04:00The opening passage, a teaser from my latest novel entitled : THE TRANSIT OF TRISTAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkbmaqZN5OmHANtTuT-Q-G33QzJ7RbvFi-OVM3ppYtYqj2G5C4EFsnzKqHHXy112nHhTJHl6AooKZzSXQTjplfUDIhWvn0wHyXvBk8fSiai5bvRiA7f7fHdnq4EwESUriDYGKVdQ/s1600/aldus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="465" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkbmaqZN5OmHANtTuT-Q-G33QzJ7RbvFi-OVM3ppYtYqj2G5C4EFsnzKqHHXy112nHhTJHl6AooKZzSXQTjplfUDIhWvn0wHyXvBk8fSiai5bvRiA7f7fHdnq4EwESUriDYGKVdQ/s200/aldus.jpg" width="170" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wednesday
August 17<sup>th</sup>, 1994</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Telephoto lenses
nestled in the soft embrace of the duvet on the twin bed next to her,
their striated outlines highlighted by the glint from the clock
radio's absinthe coloured light. Implements of a spy. She shifted her
eyes to the polished gleam off the night table which housed the holy
trinity of all hotel rooms—television remote, clock radio,
telephone—and waited for her wake-up call feeling like a Sibyl
awaiting the cryptic arrival of the divine.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Boarding began at
seven in the morning. Departure, an hour and a half later. She didn't
know quite what to expect. The passage up river on a supply ship was
an unknown. A vastness of landscape no doubt. Fewer people certainly.
Dangers? Unlikely. Days of calm she hoped. Days of meditative walks.
A chance to reset her equilibrium with the world. Escape.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> She turned and lay
on her back, and, for a brief moment, felt she was floating, floating
upon all the days of her past, floating upon all the incidents and
incidentals that cluttered a life and hindered self-knowledge. Days
in that busy world she'd left behind where the winds of synchronicity
seemed to shape her decisions; days when a casual hesitation on a
street corner brought about the convergence of parallel lines long
prefigured.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> But not today, not on this hotel bed awake in the pre-dawn chill. She felt no
shimmering auroras of hidden truths, no premonitions of fate, only
the pale anxiety of many landfalls and departures ahead of her, where
she imagined huddles of impatient-eyed, scraggly-clothed,
emotionally-tethered souls awaited, ready to observe, evaluate, and
quietly mock her sense of escape.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> In defense, she saw
herself cup her Nikon F4, or her Pentax LX, and surreptitiously
fine-tune the focus, to the left, to the right, and then, with a dry
click, freeze their moment of time and light.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Seven
Islands. Sept-<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Îles</span></span></span></span>.
The name reminded him of the famed seven islands of Greece, the
Ionian Islands: Corfu, Lefkas, Ithaca . . . . He couldn't remember
the others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He
thought he could make out a few of the local ones in the grey morning
mist, hovering in the far distance like the long-hulled ships at
anchor waiting their turn at the loading dock.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Iron
ore.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> He
sipped from his steaming coffee cup surprised at having remembered
this fact. A friend of his mother had told him about the iron ore
decades ago, a man who'd made a living as a private pilot for various
business executives, often American, travelling the north shore of
the St. Lawrence River. He'd lived in <i>Seven Islands</i> as he
called it then. He could see him now, standing in a doorway, a tower
of a man, hands in pockets, rocking on his heels, regaling them with
stories of this exotic coastal land. Supposedly a railway had been
laid into the far north, up into the Labrador hinterlands where the
mines were located. The ore travelled south by rail, and then shipped
westwards to Montreal, or abroad.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Montreal.
That's where he should be, not in this hotel dining room with a
view of the harbour. He'd probably still be in bed, dreaming of the
music score for Vivaldi's baroque concerto for two violins, 'Per eco
in lontano,' the one he'd been working on.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> He
reached for a newspaper on a nearby table, a Québec city paper dated Saturday August thirteenth. He wasn't surprised to find the headlines
devoted to politics. It had only been four weeks since he'd overheard
news that the Québec premier had called an election for
mid-September. His colleagues at the <i>Vollenhove</i> <i>Institute
for Baroque Studies</i> knew he wasn't interested in politics, knew
he didn't read newspapers, knew he didn't listen to the radio or have
a television, but the aural and visual noise of it was difficult to
escape. Placards and signs had proliferated like musical notes of an
avant garde and dissonant composition. Graffiti scrawls of “OUI”
or “NON” appeared like bruises on the facades of fine older
buildings, and the incomprehensible political chatter in his
favourite coffee house seemed intent on intruding upon his
consciousness, intent on unravelling his sensibilities like a loose
thread pulled from one of his scarves.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> He
turned the pages passing over political contentions, homicides,
accidents, and blood sports to arrive at the weather predictions for
the week. Nothing was specified for where he was headed. From
Sept-<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Îles</span></span></span></span>
to Blanc-Sablon seemed a wilderness of no concern.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> She
finished off her banana and yoghurt and stared through the hotel
window remembering the last words of her father, a literary quotation
he must have anticipated using for years: </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Non
seulement nous regardons les choses par d'autre c</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">ô</span></i></span></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">tés,
mais avec d'autre yeux; nous n'avon garde de les trouver pareilles.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> She
didn't tell her mother he'd spoken those words. Instead, she'd
fabricated a moment of drama for her: a clutching of the daughter's
arm, her mother's name on his dying lips.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Literature
had been divisive. Best to provide this dry salve to their long
broken marriage. Sweeten the end. She realized it may have
transferred a touch of guilt upon her mother's conscience, but she
considered it a healing touch.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It
wasn't until she dealt with his estate did she come across the
literary source. He'd left a supple leather bound copy of Pascal's
<i>Pensées</i> upon his desk, the silk ribbon bookmark lining the
gutter like a red incision: Book two, number 124.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It was
if he knew he was going to die.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> As to
the author, she'd been mildly surprised. She'd anticipated a modern
philosopher or writer, someone like Sartre or Camus, Beckett even.
Why Pascal? And what was the meaning behind the words that we not
only see things from different sides, but with different eyes too, we
don't want to find them alike? And what did her father intend to
convey? Words and literature were not her domain. She'd made it
through the narrow divide of poet, playwright-father, and
actress-mother to emerge from the familial shadows with an interest
in frozen moments, captured visuals. Words had always been elusive,
slippery, unreliable.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> She
dropped the small yoghurt cup into the waste basket and wondered if
she'd be given the same room on her return in six days time. Hovering
over the phone, she picked up the <i>Hotel Mingan</i> message pad.
Six days. Not even a week. Wednesday to Monday. She would leave her
car in the hotel parking lot. Safer she thought. And further away
from the salty air of the port. She tossed the note pad on the bed
beside her packed bags.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> She
should arrange for a taxi to take her down to the port. Best to
arrive early and overcome anxieties of uncertainty.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The bearded taxi
driver with his Greek fisherman's cap was curious. Was she going to visit relatives? Which
community? No. She
was a photographer. Tourist. There and back. Sightseeing. He
nodded his head and then gave her a look in the rear view mirror as
if she was to be pitied. A single woman in her late twenties on a
supply ship to distant communities seemed a waste of life's precious
energy and time.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They
drove in silence past generic 1970s bungalows with their generic
landscape offerings of dwarf evergreens huddled in generic
formations. But for the election placards, it could have been any
street in any town, any province. They turned left on avenue Arnaud
towards the port and she caught a glimpse of tugboats in the distance
and could smell the tang of the water.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Ahead of
them she noticed a young man striding towards the pier, his long
brown hair tied back in a ponytail with a dark ribbon. He was
carrying two pieces of luggage, pale green cloth with brown leather
straps and handles. As they passed him she looked back and noticed he
was wearing what appeared to be a waistcoat. A watch chain glimmered
like an inverted rainbow at his waist.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">© Ralph Mackay 2018</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-77957022658967049362016-10-24T16:35:00.000-04:002016-11-09T14:05:37.414-05:00Four Years Ago: Chapter One: The Great Circus of China<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Preview.</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>This is the first chapter—after the prologue—of my
novel <b>Sandstone</b>.</i></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sunday October, 21, 2012.</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">1</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Great Circus of China</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">With his
peripheral vision, Duncan Alastair Strand watched his doubled profile
in the antique faceted mirror while he absentmindedly doodled a
circle of rope on old company note paper for <i>Strand
Cordage Ltd</i>., a circle of rope in the shape
of a snake eating its tail, an image whose mythological name and
spelling preoccupied his mind and clashed with the initial purpose of
his sitting at the kitchen table on this Sunday afternoon, pen in
hand, the preparatory requirement of his hunting and gathering: a
grocery list.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Bananas.</i>
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Dust
motes rose in the sun from a faux-fur slipper—his wife Amelia's
sacrifice—which Hugh, their miniature dachshund, grappled with on
the kitchen floor. Duncan paused to look upon<i>
</i>Hugh who
rested his nose in the slipper. They shared eye contact, blinking in
unison.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i> Bananas</i>.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Duncan
tried to think of the other items they needed which had occurred to
him only minutes ago, but his thoughts were scattered, elusive,
skittish as subjective personal truths. Amelia would be greeting her
new friend Jacqueline at about this moment, kissing each other on the
cheek, admiring each others outfits, and entering a café for a
little brunch and conversation; two translators from different
factions exchanging stories of deadlines and authors—distant,
unruly, recalcitrant.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i> Bananas,
Cucumbers. </i>
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i> </i>He
wondered if there was a theme here.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Baguette.
. . dish soap, capers, artichoke hearts. </i>That
was good enough to get him going he thought.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The
radio played softly in the background, an eighties song, making him
wonder if a musician from the band had become an executive of the
radio conglomerate, for they were forever playing that specific song
along the horizon of the airwaves like some kind of psychotropic
drug, such that it made him feel like a subtopian redeemer embracing
a pacifying tonic required by State.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> He
turned the radio off. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He looked through the weekly flyers for grocery
sales, and then rewarded himself with a few pages of the free arts
paper where he noticed an advertisement for the latest <i>Cirque
du Soleil</i>
show. He closed his eyes as memories began to effervesce. What year
was it? A winter month. He gathered the papers and carried them over
to the small recycling bin, then stood at the back door thinking he'd
been measuring out his life in weekly flyers and recycling pickups,
conditioned to respond to bananas at fifty-seven cents a pound. What
year was it? It had been quite cold he remembered. Late January or
February. 1982? Yes, it must have been February 1982.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Through
his pale simulacrum upon the glass, he could see his
twenty-three year old self emerge from the Viau Metro station on a
cold evening, uncertain, anxious, late. The convex roof of the
<i>Maurice Richard Arena</i>
hovered in the near distance like a dimly lit space craft. He
searched for his neatly folded ticket to see the <i>Great
Circus of China, </i>and
upon opening the door to an empty foyer,<i>
</i>heard the
clashing, stridently exotic music of the East: gongs, cymbals, erhus.
The show had already begun.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> A
disgruntled usher pointed the way with his flash light and left him
in the dark to find his seat. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the ring, young women in silk
outfits and exaggerated eye make-up, twirled glistening plates
impossibly on multiple sticks, their dark eyes radiant with
controlled emotion, their smiling lips demure. So different from the
circuses of his youth, with their manure and popcorn odours, their
parades of animals, clowns, trapeze artists, the hideous snap of the
lion tamer's whip, and the anonymous man shot out of a canon for the
deafening finale.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The
usher had returned, a bobbing flashlight coming his way. Asked for
his ticket, the attendant informed him that his seat was in the first
row. A domino effect in motion, the usher made his way between the
seats to talk to a young man in the front row while the dark outlines
of two people in the aisle awaited their true placement. The women MC
of the show looked imperiously their way wondering why there was a
commotion. The attendant waved him forward, and he shared an exchange
of looks with his imposter, but there was no animosity to be read,
and feeling a tinge of guilt at having ousted him, said
'pardoner-moi' as they edged past each other like prisoners exchanged
on a dark border. The residual warmth left by his phantom occupant
added to his sense of complicity. He'd been quite content in the
fifth row. He didn't like to draw attention to himself. Yet here he
was, ushered into the light that splashed the ring's edge.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Two
young women came out, placed themselves on their backs on raised,
curved platforms, and began to juggle with their soft-slippered feet,
an assortment of large items tossed to them from assistants: wooden
chairs, large imitation Ming vases, boxes, and carpets. Their finely
contoured legs and bums were slightly elevated by the platforms and
at an angle to his seat. His heart rate and temperature rose, a blush
came to his cheeks. At one moment as they twirled fine woven carpets
in wavering circles like the gowns of spinning dervishes, the
performer closest to him, looked sideways and caught his eye for a
moment as if curious to see who'd been the focus of attention. Their
eye contact brought him closer to the experience, overcoming the
spectacle with the personal, overcoming their diverse cultures with
an intense shared moment. She was not just a circus act, but a young
woman behind the rouge and the lipstick, a young woman with a
history, a young woman with desires and hopes, a young woman from
Communist China possibly looking to . . . escape.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Returning
to the frigid night and the dreary metro ride home had not diminished
his sense of wonderment. The patterns of circularity and the human
form had merged to create a symbolic representation of universal
symmetry. There had been a hint of transcendence in the performances.
It had all made sense to him. The answers had seemed clear. It was
only later, however, sleepless in the dark, did he imagine himself
befriending the circus performer, listening to her life story,
discovering her desire to live in the west, helping her escape, and
finding themselves chased by Chinese officials across the breadth of
Canada like spies in a best-selling thriller.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Duncan
stared through his indistinct reflection, then brought his hands up
to his face and rubbed his eyes. Thirty years ago. Another life. The
attractive young performer was likely long retired from the circus;
married, probably with a son. The young man he'd supplanted was, he
liked to believe, the man who was now worth almost three billion
dollars. It was unlikely he would ever know for certain whether he
was the future founder of the <i>Cirque du
Soleil.</i> He
could very well have been a bartender from Beloeil, but it was his
personal myth, a type of cautionary tale, making him mindful of
opportunity, even though, at the time, he wasn't a street performer
finding influences from the East, but a young man trying to avoid a
family business, a young man adrift from a relationship with a young
woman newly arrived from Hong Kong, a young man looking for a way
out, a way out of his own making.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">© Ralph Mackay</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-22268488353284585212015-09-11T17:20:00.003-04:002015-09-11T17:21:53.811-04:00A Limbering Exercise in Flashfiction<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>You Know</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, you know that famous saying .
. . .”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The young man on the bench, seemingly
more interested in pedestrians on the other side of the street than
listening to words spoken in a somewhat harsh voice, left his
questioner hanging.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You know . . . ?” the older man
continued, as if prompting was his business. “It generally refers
to actors. Film actors mainly,” he said, his right hand describing a small circle in the air. He paused, sharing the view across
the street while thoughts of aspect ratios flickered in his mind. “Pick an actor, any actor.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The companion didn't respond.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Right then, let's say . . . David Patrick
Kelly. A very good character actor. Still in the biz. So, the saying would go like this: 'Who's David Patrick Kelly? Get me David Patrick Kelly!! Get me a
young David Patrick Kelly! And then . . . Who's David Patrick
Kelly?” The man's laughter sounded like it came though a cabbage
shredder. A smoker's laugh. A smoker who possibly drank.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The companion shifted his weight and
looked down the street without a response.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“'Who's David Patrick Kelly?' Oh,
boy, that's a good one. It's just like fucking life isn't it?” He nodded to himself, his gaze shifting to the overcast sky as if
his aged, once handsome face was expecting a benediction.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The young man removed his earbuds,
raised himself, and walked a few steps over to the curb to await the
approaching bus.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-69361650909038520442014-11-15T22:29:00.001-05:002014-11-15T22:29:34.796-05:00Yes Cecil Update<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH60noC5Do3kr6MT2NoSb7SqUUKwdo2p9lbOelZgWUSiU2dYxCUx7xJZbbvGbpm5nbiE70kenkAB5BxFNPGWDMHAoAGLHtjCdYsKaLgKJcJyGnBRI0E-o6Sb1O1X-YOTZRVG7ixw/s1600/SoulCollage2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH60noC5Do3kr6MT2NoSb7SqUUKwdo2p9lbOelZgWUSiU2dYxCUx7xJZbbvGbpm5nbiE70kenkAB5BxFNPGWDMHAoAGLHtjCdYsKaLgKJcJyGnBRI0E-o6Sb1O1X-YOTZRVG7ixw/s1600/SoulCollage2.JPG" height="123" width="200" /></a>I'm presently working on the opening and final chapters of this novel in progress. I will then edit the manuscript thoroughly. By year end I hope to have it completed with new title appended. From there, I will seek publication proper, and begin work on my next novel that's been biding its time, arms crossed, left eyebrow arched.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>It's a train that suddenly</i><br />
<i>stops with no station around,</i><br />
<i>and we can hear the cricket,</i><br />
<i>and . . . .</i><br />
<br />
-from Rilke's <i>The Wait</i><br />
trans. from French by A. Poulin<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-90816382922546121232014-10-13T11:08:00.000-04:002015-01-29T22:43:35.546-05:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Eighty-Four<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmgZdbyiJWf1HtJLJL7xSpeLayblNdl4im8jeDjdt5P_VRsRjg9F1488gz8w1OKNbVwUZJx2Ad-RuPv_LCW2OkSzRz5IlbgtDUD4Lm6MOMZxj_s_ePEwvc9uteuZnmazBDiLrhw/s1600/Stokes_Melisande.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmgZdbyiJWf1HtJLJL7xSpeLayblNdl4im8jeDjdt5P_VRsRjg9F1488gz8w1OKNbVwUZJx2Ad-RuPv_LCW2OkSzRz5IlbgtDUD4Lm6MOMZxj_s_ePEwvc9uteuZnmazBDiLrhw/s1600/Stokes_Melisande.jpg" height="320" width="188" /></a>Aqueous floaters plied the liquid of
his eyes like pieces of driftwood, their shapes reminding him of
punctuation marks: comas, inverted question marks, and tildes, those
squiggly lines to be found on the upper reaches of his computer
keyboard. Pavor rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, the pressure
producing a mild version of the kaleidoscopic displays he used to
enjoy as a youth, the mandala-like formations of light expanding and
merging before dwindling to an opaque sepia tone which in turn
diminished to the darkness of an imagined interstellar space.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Like elusive holograms,” he said,
as if to himself.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mélisande, sitting at his desk, looked
round. “What?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Those little floating particles in
our eyes, they're like elusive holograms.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah yes, I have a little dark one in
my lower right eye. I'll be reading in bed, and I'll flinch because
I'll think there's a spider on my sleeve, or on the bedspread.
Something to do with the angle of light and shadow I imagine.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I wonder what creates them?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You can probably Google it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He stretched his legs out from his
comfy chair and yawned, arching his back. “That would just take the
mystery out of it.” He paused for a few moments.“What about . . .
optical fish swimming in our visual aquariums?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Optical fish.” She smiled. “More
like eye dust.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He looked up to the corner of the
ceiling and noticed filaments of dust swaying in the radiator's rising warmth like undersea
vegetation. “My Mother used to call it Irish lace,” he said
pointing towards the ceiling.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Irish lace?” She raised her
eyebrows and pursed her lips. “That's rather . . . .”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He sat up in his chair. “She didn't
say it with a negative connotation. My Mother must have picked it up
from my English Grandmother. When I was young, I knew nothing about
prejudices towards the Irish, and I thought it a magical term,<i>
Irish lace</i>. It wasn't until I was in my twenties, stuck as I was
in my subjective mind, that I could shake the reference and see it
for what it was. Then I wondered how I could have been so blind.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Great, now when I see the ceiling
dust, I'll think <i>Irish lace, </i>and
I'll have to catch myself from saying it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor got up and walked over to her and
began to massage her shoulders and neck, watching their reflections
in the window, like two actors in front of a backcloth painted with a
night scene of tree branches, the historic Sulpician Tower with its
weather vane and the old fortification walls outlined with freshly
fallen snow. “I just remembered the oddest dream I had last night,”
he said, as he watched a small pick-up truck pass their building.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mélisande gave up her reading and bent
her head down resting it on her hands. “What was it?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I was in a country setting, standing
before a pile of interesting carved stone ornaments, pineapple
finials and crosses, and I found myself wanting to take one, the
smallest of them, a ball finial which looked like a pawn in a chess
game. But I felt I shouldn't just help myself to them, especially as
I felt they were from a cemetery. Next thing I remember I have this
heavy stone ornament and I'm trying to attach it behind the seat of
my small motorcycle, which is odd, because I've never owned one. I
cover it with a jacket or something, and then I see an odd vehicle
bounce by on a nearby road it's truck bed laden down with these types
of stone pieces, and I think 'cemetery.' I feel they saw me in the
rear view mirror and I begin to worry they'll come after me. It was
an odd vehicle. One of those cars that have a pick-up truck bed in
the back.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm, yes . . . an El Camino.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What? How'd you know that?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Librarians know everything Pavor.
You must remember this.” They laughed. “No, my cousin Frank
owned one. Always showing off his souped up half car to us. I
remember it was blue with red flames painted along the sides. We used
to joke it was like that hairstyle, the mullet. 'Here comes Frank
with his mullet car' we used to say. 'Business in the front, party in
the back.' Sorry, I don't know who came up with that
phrase.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Right . . . your cousin Frank.” He
realised he knew so little of her family.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I probably would have forgotten the
name of the car but it's stuck in my memory alongside the pilgrimage
trek, the Camino de Santiago. So, what happened next?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
His fingers worked their way up to her
scalp like a pilgrim up a hillside. “I don't know. I woke up I
guess. That's all I remember. But I really wanted the stone finials,
felt they'd make great decorations in a garden.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You . . . don't have a . . . garden.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I know, I know. Maybe a future
garden. Our future garden.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A silence overcame them as they each
envisioned their own variation of an ideal house with a garden,
Mélisande trying to accommodate Pavor's ball finial in her English
herbaceous border, and Pavor wondering if Mélisande would punctuate
his formal layout with a stone sculpture of a great Mother Goddess,
the type she'd been discussing over dinner the other night, one of
those pregnant stone earth Mother figures that she said long predated
the Greek Apollo and his control over the Delphic oracles like some
kind of Parnassian pimp. Such thoughts led to further speculations on
how they'd balance the feminine and masculine elements within the
house. Would the living room be masculine decor, and the bedroom
feminine? His de Chirico copy of <i>The Nostalgia of the Infinite</i>
over the mantle piece, or her portrait as <i>Mélisande</i> by
Marianne Stokes copied by Jerome?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He continued massaging her scalp,
exploring the geography of her northernmost hemisphere, deep in the
forests beyond the tundra of her shoulders and neck, remarking how
the whorl of her follicle origin was counterclockwise and slightly to
the right of centre, which made him think of spirals, and he wondered
if it could it be connected to the golden spiral of the Fibonacci
sequence he'd been reading about? Softly, he massaged Mélisande's
temples and around her ears, gently kneading while his mind drifted
off to the phantom islands and lost atolls in the ocean of his
memories. She began to breath deeply and he sensed she'd eased
herself into a light doze. Gently, cautiously, he withdrew his hands
and listened to her inhalation and exhalation with the attentiveness
of a parent beside the crib of a newborn. He returned to his chair
and picked up one of his old writing notebooks from a box he'd
taken from storage in the hope that he'd find inspiration for plot
developments, and began to turn pages with fresh, though vague
thoughts of writing a mystery novel with clues laid in a pattern
according to the Fibonacci sequence. An expanse of white space upon
the paper brought his thoughts back. He'd come to little stacks of
poetry, lines like hexagrams in the <i>I Ching.</i> He'd written the
poems and fragments after the death of his wife Victoria and their
child Tamara and he'd half forgotten them. With apprehension, he
began to read:
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fare Forward</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dreams of puzzles
three-dimensionally crossed</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With letters in glorious
enthralment,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arouse to awaken, the
sanity of whiteness,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Free convention, and fresh
linen.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Grappling the flux with
porous invention,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I reveal how sea-drops
gather quickly,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The vestige apperception,
as it pales to confusion,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Cleansed by holistic
circlings.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A moral tenor, tending
notes to equation</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In a forever ending
consummation,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Farewell my love, this is
the last curtain,'</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A vinyl disc, grooves ever
meeting.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With arm extended in
spring's dusty air,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I press the clock-radio's
pause,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And fare forward I flow
with mythical dreams,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of stylistic fingers ever
repeating.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
-</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Silhouette / fragment</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The silhouette of dark
consent, a pure</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Memento mori; languor's
lenten ease.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The sails of hawk in
circle motion, dark</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Beneath the quiet force of
sun; the growth</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That breaks the earth, the
shadow of a cloud,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The silent image, slip of
dream, the mark</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of eye upon the page, a
soundless oath</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That festers within
speech, a golden shroud.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
-</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In Buckram</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In buckram with blank
cartridge, pavonine</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yet apterous, a fallen
angle lost</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With ink dipped quills, I
flounce the mirror's sign</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of a Bobadil in feathered
humour's tost.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The quiet purist in me
shifts the page</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To suit the hearth, for
ash to fit the soil</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To benefit the sapor of a
fruit.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And yet, I draw the bow
again to wage</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The shot of
apple-innocence, and toil</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To render into verse, it's
very root.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor closed the notebook
and slipped it back into the white filing box. A bad idea he thought.
A bad idea. The memories would encircle him like snakes, massaging,
constricting and ultimately suffocating him with past regrets. He
looked out the window above Mélisande, trying to focus on the night
sky through the reflection of the living room upon the glass.
Tomorrow, if the weather was pleasant, they should go for a Sunday
morning trudge up the mountain and follow the pathways to the summit
lookout, and breath the cold, crisp air, sip hot chocolate from the
chalet and watch the city before them, glinting, humming, and
steaming, alive with pre-Christmas activity, alive with new
generations of diversity, alive with anticipation and possibility.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mélisande awoke, groaned
and stretched, wiping moisture from the corner of her mouth. “Ohh.
. . your massage put me right out.” She swept a hand across the
manuscript pages. “Sorry, I think I drooled on your novel.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Approaching her, he bent
down, hugged her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “A
special watermark to remember then, 'this is where Mélisande fell
asleep!'
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Luckily it's only a first
draft.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What do you say to a walk
on the mountain tomorrow?” If the weather's good that is.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sure, that sounds nice. I
could use the exercise.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Great, I'll let you
continue reading. Do you want anything from the kitchen? I feel like
a piece of that strong cheddar and some of that nice bread.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She was tempted to joke
about him feeling like a piece of cheese but let it go. “No,
nothing for me, thanks,” and watched him leave the room, his
fingers scratching his brow. She sensed his distraction, his
preoccupation, his pale anxiety, and put it down to creative pains.
She picked up a pencil in her left hand and waggled it over the pages
and began to read:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Rex Under Glass – Part
Nine</b></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She watched Rex Packard walk around the
corner carrying what appeared to be a painting. She put her car in
drive and pulled up beside him as he reached his rental. She lowered
the window. “Have you added art theft to your quiver Rex?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
His questioner's voice, a rather richly
toned feminine voice, though startling, was not threatening. If he'd
been in danger, there wouldn't have been sarcastic small talk. Rex
ignored the question and continued to place the painting in the back
seat of his car before turning to see a black Escalade driven by a
dark tanned attractive woman in her mid to late forties, her
short blond hair gelled and curled this way and that in an artistic
fashion. “We need to talk,” she said, and he heard the click of
unlocked doors.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She smiled holding out her hand.“Vera,
Vera Causalton, most people call me Vera Causa.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex didn't catch the reference as he
fastened the seat-belt, but he shook her hand. “I guess I don't
have to introduce myself,” he said, feeling somewhat off balance,
both by the surprise situation and her attractiveness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Without a word, she drove up the
winding streets with control and speed until they arrived at a
lookout on Summit Circle blocked to vehicular access by stone
planters. She parked just before the expanse along a sidewalk near a
gated entrance to one of the enormous Westmount mansions and got out.
Rex followed as she walked towards the stone balustrade and the
flickering city lights in the distance.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Money and influence Rex,” she said
motioning to the stone planters with their rather scraggly floral
displays. “This lookout, or Belevedere, used to be open to cars so
you can imagine the late night revellers, the teenage trysts, the
creaking cars, the disruptive sounds, the broken bottles. Now . . .
parking is obviously curtailed and a curfew's in place.” She looked
at her watch, a large faced multi-functional dial. “Shouldn't be
long before one of the private security SUV's makes an appearance.”
She looked up. “Camera surveillance.” She withdrew a small brown
decorative box and took out a little thin cigarillo and lit up.
“Started smoking Schimmelpennincks when I was based in The Hague.”
She blew smoke out towards the city, the lights of the residential
lowlands, the towers of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Westmount Square
and the beginnings of the rising cityscape with its condominium and
office towers to the east.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex was impressed with Vera's moxy, her
alluring figure and her large dark eyes, so much so, he forgot to
have one of his own cigarettes. Perhaps he worried it would be his
last. “Are you with one of the intelligence services?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She ignored the question. “It's about
Vernon Smythe. His activities of late have been causing some . . .
ripples in foreign ponds. As you may have learned, he's invested
heavily in commercial applications of various scientific and
technological innovations. The Russians, the Chinese, even the North
Koreans have done business with our Mr. Smythe.” She drew heavily
on her cigarillo before exhaling towards the sky. “It seems there's
also money to be made in more . . . capitalistic endeavours at home.
For an example, when there's an urgent need for a city sports team to
win a championship, Vernon's company can be hired to use their
acoustic weapons to have the visiting team wake up in their hotel
rooms fatigued, irritable, and feeling like their spines have been
twisted like an elastic, and their jaws wired shut. Specific players
can be targeted, the goalies, the top scorers, the pitchers, the
heavy hitters, the quarterbacks that type of thing. Easier targets
are individual sports figures such as golfers, tennis players, etc.
Where there's a fortune to be won, some will shake hands with . . . a
Vernon Smythe.” She turned her back to the city and sat upon the
balustrade.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“So, what can I do about it?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A large wheeled SUV drove up and parked
alongside the stone planters and a man emerged talking into a
shoulder communication device. Rex watched as Vera walked towards him
and began a conversation; she showed him some type of identification
and he tipped his hat, smiled, and made his way back to the security
vehicle. She came back to Rex, tossed her cigarillo to the concrete
walkway and crushed it out with her expensive black leather loafer.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“We want you to do the right thing
and help your country. Be one of our unofficial eyes and ears on
Vernon Smythe and Co.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex looked towards the dark foliage of
the park trees, a sense of confusion overcoming him, as if he'd
wandered off a pathway and was lost in a forest. Was that a small
stream running across the park? He squinted his eyes but he couldn't
make it out.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The future is all about conditioning
Rex. Conditioning, psychological control and manipulation. With every
keystroke monitored, every nuance evaluated, every communications
analyzed by algorithms to discover 'negative association quotients,'
or NAQs, Governments can then instigate a universal system of
protocols to adjust civilian behaviours. Someone visits a
questionable site, they receive a shot of acoustic or some other type
of conditioning. Over time, citizens will learn, like mice in a lab
experiment, to avoid such associations. Old fashioned conditioning
Rex. Avoidance therapy. The main problem is of course the male
population between the ages of 14 and 34, always has been. We've been
lucky to have the gaming culture in place—although it has its
problems too—but it's been much the best pacifier since television
and popular music. But you see, Vernon is pushing the envelope,
getting ahead of plans, possibly undermining such future
developments.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sounds like a cheap science fiction
novel,” Rex said, turning around and sitting beside her, their
thighs touching.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She looked at him sideways. “We're
already living in a cheap science fiction novel Rex. HyperSonic Sound
is old hat. My trunk is full of parabolic microphones and other
acoustic paraphernalia.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sounds kind of kinky to me, but
whatever turns you on.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vera Causalton got up and started
walking to her Escalade, while Rex stared at her hips swaying in her
tight dress pants. “Think about it Rex.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He followed her. He felt he would
follow her anywhere.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
-</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mélisande put the pages
back in the folder and placed the pencil back in the chipped blue coffee mug, its dark graphite spire head first past the glossy veneers of plump felt pens and retractable ballpoints to the shadows below where small coloured thumbtacks awaited, forgotten in the dust. Pavor's story lines
were too bizarre for her. His readers, however, seemed to enjoy them. What kind of person could torture an innocent with such acoustic weapons she wondered? Who could do such things? Who could be so drained of empathy, compassion, humanity? She wished he would abandon this darkness, this shadow-side, and find new subject matter. Perhaps if he wrote an autobiographical work of fiction, reveal the loss of his wife and child, cast it upon the page, it would be a catharsis, akin to a baptism, allowing him to embrace a new path. <br />
<br />
She slipped the folder back in the desk drawer and turned her head towards the kitchen trying to understand what the
sound was, and then realised it was Pavor humming along to a song on
the radio. As she made her way to the warmth and brightness of the
kitchen, she recognized it. It was the song, <i>A Holly Jolly Christmas </i>sung
by<i> </i>Burl Ives, a song bound to brighten the mood of the
most jaded misanthrope. She began to smile. </div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 15px;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-65248902067652886332014-10-01T00:02:00.000-04:002015-01-29T22:37:46.983-05:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Eighty-Three<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCmK2bDL6uIt80YPwclGTxcfmvXwociTTo6FwihJGbyPz_0NQ3sJW0pr2LOS1rZbmBTrL3vxiR1L7f8zzZzBI2K5R0MWb0z8fze17wLWMAljc8WINWzLZhCiQH0GnfgjnBP6XDjQ/s1600/ghirlandaio2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCmK2bDL6uIt80YPwclGTxcfmvXwociTTo6FwihJGbyPz_0NQ3sJW0pr2LOS1rZbmBTrL3vxiR1L7f8zzZzBI2K5R0MWb0z8fze17wLWMAljc8WINWzLZhCiQH0GnfgjnBP6XDjQ/s1600/ghirlandaio2.jpg" height="200" width="197" /></a>Duncan raised the cool water in his
cupped hands and gently pressed it against his face, rested his palms
over each eye, and breathed deeply as the remnant water trickled down
his wrists. He repeated the process and then reached for a towel
thinking perhaps he shouldn't have been drinking <i>Maudite</i> along
with his new prescription. Looking deep into the mirrored reflection
of his brown eyes, he wondered if the depression medication he'd been
taking since Edward Seymour had advised “a light tonic” back in
the mid-80s, was interacting with it.<br />
<br />
He put his glasses on, and as
he ran his fingers through his hair, he noticed one of the many
postcards of Montreal landmarks that Yves had applied to his record
shop bathroom walls as decoration—a veritable salle de bain time
machine—a postcard of the amusement centre of their early youth,
<i>Belmont Park</i> in Cartierville with a view of the north river,
now, somewhat ironically, a quiet green space named after its noisy
predecessor. Memories, faded brief instances, flashes of image came
back to him like those of his Father's slide shows of their family
vacations to Cavendish Beach or Expo 67: the old wooden roller
coaster descent, his baseball cap swept away, a sharp corner of the
<i>Wild Mouse</i>, puddles and reflected sky, litter and sticky
shoes, popcorn and pink cotton candy, shooting ducks in the shadows,
ring toss, stuffed animals, spinning teacups, an enormous mallet
suspended in the air anticipating the ringing of the bell, the bumper
cars . . . bumper cars. It had been one of his favourite choices as a
kid, yet one of the most frustrating. Alone, finally in control of
one's direction, gripping the steering wheel, foot to the pedal and
then . . . one was bumped off course, bumped again from another,
pinned against the side while the clock ticked and the opportunity to
drive freely, diminished. It was like life itself he thought,
self-determination battered by the vicissitudes of a competitive
world. Or at least a competitive twin.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He stretched his neck. Grinding bone
and muscle rippled and popped.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But wouldn't the far-seeing gurus and
those complacent authors on the self-help shelves supporting the
zeitgeist of the day admonish him? Wouldn't they chide him for not
seeing that <i>he too</i> was the driver of the other bumper cars?
Wouldn't they say he was pinning <i>himself </i>to
the edge<i> </i>while<i>
</i>the unseen clock ticked
away with maddening velocity? Expired? In stasis? A mirrored infinity
of little Duncan's at the wheel?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Frozen in the banality of an everyday
truth, he looked at himself in the mirror.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Was <i>he</i> responsible for the
disappearance of the two unusual manuscripts? Was <i>he</i>
responsible for the condominium development bulldozing the land his
bookshop and family cordage business had found its home? Politics?
Language? The price of gas? The double-faced internet?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Was he responsible for the discovery of
the unusual rock on the sandy beach of Prince Edward Island? And for
its loss?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As his thoughts grappled with bastard
fate, the image of the marble sculpture of Laocoön rose in his mind.
As soon as we slip from our Mother's wombs, he thought, we're swept
into that flow of myriad possibilities, headlong, fingers in fists,
coming out fighting, ready for the first slap.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan rolled his shoulders and
readied himself to join his friends, and as he opened the door he
heard the soft acoustic 1970s folk sounds of Harmonium's <i>Pour un
instant </i>coming from the
speakers, and he stood in the open doorway, the lyrics and melody
enticing him to feed on nostalgia, and yet he sensed, at least for
the moment, he was a stranger there, out of place, his appetite
expired much like the clock of that old amusement park ride so long
ago. He felt remarkably untethered, yet he was equally filled with
the uncertainty of what he would do. His life lay before him like one
of those winding paths in old paintings leading to distant lands. He
was still relatively young at 53 years of age. Wasn't he? Fifty
three. Fifty three? Nausea rose from the pit of his stomach as if
that amusement park mallet suspended in the air had finally come down
to hit the mark, but the puck had only risen a few feet in his mind,
the ringing bell silent far above.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He was on the dust
heap at fifty three.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lucrezia checked her smart
phone for further messages from Declan who was caught in a flight
delay at LaGuardia airport, which, according to his lack of syntax
and use of exclamation marks, was not a pleasant experience on a
Saturday evening on the 22<sup>nd</sup> of December. Seeing he
wouldn't be able to make it to their country house till the next day
for their quiet Christmas together, she'd made a visit to the secret
book room and retrieved the cigarettes she kept in a fake volume
bound in calf with the title <i>The Sibylline Oracles - Sir John
Floyer - 1713</i> in gilt on the spine. She'd just finished with a
cigarette and tossed the remnant into the fireplace where the dry
maple wood crackled and sputtered sending flames and sparks upwards
like a smithy's forge. She rarely smoked more than the first half,
just enough to overcome the need. The unacknowledged habit helped
reduce her consumption, and hiding them, and rarely smoking them,
added to their elicit pleasure. Their household staff were aware of
her occasional proclivity; smoke vortexes rising from between the
hedges of the maze, random white filters of her Davidoff brand
unearthed in the garden by Belford Owens their gardener and stable
man, or the hint of smoke on her clothes caught by the sharp nose of
Miriam his wife, were sure signs. Of course Thaddeus and Bartholomew
knew. They purchased them for her. As for Declan, she knew his
opinion of her occasional habit. He voiced his concern once, and let
it rest.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She paced back and forth in
front of the hearth, arms crossed, wondering if she should start that
Ann Patchett novel she'd bought, but ultimately, she felt too
restless for the page. She missed sitting for Jerome, missed watching
him work, looking at his body move as he worked the canvas. She'd
been foolish with him once, but he hadn't been the first. There had
been that sportsman sailor in Antigua, and the book specialist at
Sotheby's in London but that was all. Brief flings of the moment.
Three occasions. No further relations or communication. She couldn't
see herself doing it again. She was glad Jerome was getting married
but Declan's offer to host a small reception for the couples in the
spring made her worry Jerome's wife would somehow perceive that
something had occurred between them. A glance, or a phrase by one of
them, or even by Thaddeus and Bartholomew, could possibly arouse a
speculation.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Passing the Longcase clock
in the hallway, she made her way to the kitchen where she'd left the
novel and found Beaumont lying on the rug near the door, half-asleep.
She winked at him when he opened an eye to look at her, and then she
bent down and petted his shoulder and side.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Declan will be home
tomorrow Beaumont, tomorrow,” she said. “He can take you for a
long . . .” but she caught herself before she said the word whose
sound was a pure Pavlovian trigger.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
While she made herself a cup
of hot chocolate, she decided one of her favourite movies was the
cure for her malaise. Ever since having watched one of Gene Tierney's
movies on television when young, she'd become enamoured with the
actress. She brought her mug to the cozy upstairs den and opened the
cherry wood cabinet to reveal the large flat screen television, and
shelves filled with books on her favourite actress, along with DVDs
of most of her movies. Two rows of movies beckoned her: <i>Belle
Star, Whirlpool, Close To My Heart, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Where
the Sidewalk Ends, Heaven Can Wait, The Razor's Edge, Son of Fury,
Black Widow, Leave Her To Heaven, Night and the City, Sundown,
Hudson's Bay, Tobacco Road, On the Riviera, The Shanghai Gesture,
Dragonwyck, Never Let Me Go, Thunder Birds, Laura. The Left Hand of
God </i>and many others<i>.</i>
Lucrezia chose <i>Laura</i> as the film to watch, and she pulled out
a large glossy book with pictures of the actress accompanied by
famous people in her life such as Oleg Cassini, Aly Khan, John F.
Kennedy, Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hughes and Dana Andrews among others. She also
reached for the actress's autobiography entitled, <i>Self-Portrait</i>
and walked over to her favourite chair. She placed the books beside the Tiffany lamp on the small wooden filing cabinet in the corner of the room
which kept her collection of Tierney memorabilia which Ebay had enabled her to find, movie cards, photographs, magazines with her
cover photo such as <i>Life, Movieland, Screenland, Movie Stars, Modern Screen,
Silver Screen, Paris Match</i>, and rare movie posters she had had
professionally framed in dark wood to match the den's decor: <i>Sundown,
Laura, Night and the City, Dragonwyck </i>and
<i>Leave Her to Heaven. </i>Declan
called the den the Tierney Room.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As
the credits rolled in front of the painting of the title character
played by Tierney, she hummed along to the theme music and flipped
through the actress's autobiography, stopping to look at the
photographs. She recalled how she'd suffered from depression and had been hospitalized in the mid-1950s. Electroshock treatments had been administered. Memory loss had been a side-effect. What a nightmare it must have been for her she thought. A gorgeous woman named after a man, in a man's world, controlled by mad scientists in white coats placing electrodes on her forehead and
temples. Such a world of madness must have been as claustrophobic as a small room thick with cobwebs.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She
closed the book and paused the movie so she could get her reading
glasses she'd left in the bedroom, and after finding them on her side
table, she stood before the portrait of herself as Lucrezia
Panciatichi painted by Jerome, and wondered how long it would be before she found herself talking to the portrait like a heroine in a Victorian novel.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">© Ralph Patrick Mackay</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 15px;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-17303591155282423092014-09-09T13:03:00.000-04:002014-09-19T15:30:46.561-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Eighty-Two<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNEV5TA1b6_hFJsY5E0dWXbcXjW6f2mJdBxwdAk3jNROnSMSmhrruOT_hRcsS8Rs9GV_u-YK5pD0-GshbHddDB1q8HcVPymkq2Aa9AK1SVrY5HWoUwWaO74j2DTs0jEPRCspi9A/s1600/marbled31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNEV5TA1b6_hFJsY5E0dWXbcXjW6f2mJdBxwdAk3jNROnSMSmhrruOT_hRcsS8Rs9GV_u-YK5pD0-GshbHddDB1q8HcVPymkq2Aa9AK1SVrY5HWoUwWaO74j2DTs0jEPRCspi9A/s1600/marbled31.jpg" height="200" width="101" /></a>While Mrs. Shimoda sat up in bed
concentrating on Tsushima Yûko's <i>Oma Monogatori</i>, a book of
ghost stories she'd found in the multilingual section of her local
library, Amelia was standing across the street with Hugh looking at
the old-fashioned multi-coloured Christmas lights around their living
room window, large snow flakes falling around her, occasionally
dissolving upon her face with a ticklish sensation, her thoughts
drifting towards her concerns over Duncan who at that moment was
standing on a sidewalk two miles away near <i>Disques Deux Côtés</i>
looking back at his footsteps in the snow thinking they were like
the repetitive solitary imprints of someone stranded upon a desert
island, the shadowgraphs of an invisible man.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As he approached the window of his
friend's secondhand record shop, Duncan heard the muted strains of
<i>She Sells Sanctuary</i> by the Cult, and he paused to look through
the window framed with its cedar garlands and blinking red and blue
Christmas lights at the rather absurd spectacle of two grown men
playing invisible instruments—Tom sitting on a stool drumming the
cluttered counter top with yellow pencils, and Yves facing him,
plying vigorous down strokes to an unseen low slung bass—and he
imagined his brother Gavin strutting about with a microphone and
himself on lead guitar but the shop just wasn't big enough for
Gavin's stage presence and the vision faded. He stood there feeling
like a chess piece that couldn't be moved, paradoxically stuck in the
continuous present like a work of art, while a snow plow with its
revolving orange light, rumbled and scraped the road behind him,
angling the frigid accumulations of his life to the curbside into
inverted furrows towards tomorrow.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well if it isn't Dunc the Monk,”
Yves said, as Duncan entered the shop stamping his boots on the
inside mat. “We were starting to get worried.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sorry guys, I just stopped to pick
these up,” and he withdrew a six pack of <i>Maudite</i> from a
black cotton shopping bag. “I think they're already cold.” He
winked.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tom opened the box and withdrew three
beers and handed them out. “I think the first toast should be to
Dunc, a good friend who made it back from the brink . . . just so he
could ask us to help him pack up his bookstore . . . and have a
drink.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They laughed and Duncan playfully
tossed his bottle cap towards Tom. “Here, a cymbal for your drum
kit.” He sipped his beer. “I really appreciate you guys helping
me out next week. It shouldn't take too long.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tabernac Dunc, we would have packed
up your bookstore even if you hadn't come back from the brink,”
Yves joked, throwing an arm around Duncan's shoulders and giving him
a squeeze. “That's what friends are for, man. We can't wait to put
your dusty books into the boxes, eh, and carry those heavy suckers
down that narrow staircase!” He gave him another squeeze. “I'm a
mean two handed slinger of packing-tape. I'll bring my own, fully
loaded.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan laughed. “I should get you a
special box for your tape dispensers, like the ones they have for
duelling pistols.” The subject aroused a flurry of literary
references in Duncan's mind, the duels in Lermontov, Conrad, Thomas
Mann and Pushkin. “Once when Amelia and I rented the film <i>Eugene
Onegin </i>based on the Alexander Pushkin book, which has a major
duel in the story, the young store clerk, who was something right
out of <i>The Sopranos</i> opened the case to check it was the right
tape and confirm the title with us, pronouncing it <i>U Gene One
Gin.</i>”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sounds like a gun fighter from the
old west who couldn't hold his liquor,” Tom offered.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's good, that's good. I like
that,” Duncan said. “Amelia and I found it amusing and we laughed
on the way home, but mispronunciations are interesting. They open the
words up. You see them afresh. God knows I mispronounced enough names
and words when I was younger.” He remembered embarrassing moments
concerning Aeschylus and Goethe in front of classmates. “So,”
thinking he was losing them, “that was a pretty good rendition of
<i>She Sells Sanctuary</i>.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yves was about to say how great it
would have been to have played it on stage, but seeing the song came
out around the same time Duncan's brother died in a car crash and
their band <i>The Splices </i>truly fell apart, he just nodded his head and
said, “The Cult's still playing gigs. . . with every other bloody
band since the creation of rock and roll!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“When we grew up in the sixties and
seventies,” Tom added, “rock stars died young. Brian Jones,
Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison. I thought you either died young or went on
to get a real job and grow old like the rest of humanity.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Mark Bolan,” Yves added. “Keith
Moon, Gram Parsons and those are just a few, eh, colis.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Randy Rhoads,” Duncan chimed in.
“I know, I know. Who could have predicted rock music would be a
life-long career without retirement? To stay hip is to have a few hip replacements, a little
tuck here, a bit of hair dye there, and Bob's your Monkey's uncle
still jumping around the stage.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They shook their heads, drank their
beer and felt like they'd missed the last ship out of port.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan broke the silence. “I've been
busy going through files and papers of <i>Lafcadio & Co</i>., and
<i>Strand Cordage</i>,” he said, as he searched the pockets of his
winter coat, “and I came across some interesting items. Like this,”
and he produced a wrinkled and folded piece of paper. “One of our
set lists from late 1978. This is Gavin's. He used to tape it to the
side of his electric piano.” He handed it to Yves.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Colin de bin!” Yves said as he
read the list. “Brings back memories, eh.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Holy crap,” Tom said, leaning over
to read the list. “More cow bell please! I remember that set
really worked well in the high schools, town halls, church basements
and bars in the boonies. Wakefield, Sherbrooke, Grand Mère, Thetford
Mines, Granby, Magog . . . .”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yves shook his head with nostalgia.
“And everywhere in between, cris.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Miriam Fixed, monospace;">S<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">et
/ October 1978 / Mascouche</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<ol>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Rock
& Roll Hoochie Koo / Derringer</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I
Want You to Want Me / Cheap Trick</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Two
Tickets to Paradise / Eddie Money</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Suffragette
City / David Bowie</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Just
What I Needed / The Cars</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">My
Best Friend's Girl / “ “</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Changes
/ David Bowie</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Lines
On My Face / Peter Frampton</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Show
Me The Way / “ “</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Don't
Fear the Reaper / Blue Oyster Cult</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Rebel,
Rebel / David Bowie</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Surrender
/ Cheap Trick</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Remember Gavin would use our band
name in the opening song where it mentioned a fictional band named
<i>The Jokers.</i>” Duncan said. “Always worked well.
Personalized it.” Duncan's rhythm section agreed with him, touching
his arm with affection as another silence befell them.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Your voice was great for <i>Lines On
My Face</i>, softer than Gavin's,” Tom said. “He was great on the
electric piano though, wasn't he?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, good times, good times. Here's
to Gavin,” Yves said, raising his beer. They clinked bottles and
drank to Duncan's twin.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“November 1978 was near the end of
our cover band days though. When Gavin and I went to England during
the summer of 1979 to visit my Mother's side of the family, the
Chadwicks, that was the turning point.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, where was that? Something
'field'? Ecclesfield?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Macclesfield,” Duncan corrected.
“You remember Eccles because I came back to Montreal with an Eccles
cake addiction and couldn't find any here, and was always going on
and on about missing Eccles cakes, Eccles cake.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Right, right, oh God, don't remind
us.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sorry.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's when Gavin came back with a <i>Joy Division </i>addiction<i>,</i>”
Tom said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan hesitated to respond. The story
of them having been dragged to Manchester by their second cousin to
see a band they'd never heard of had been a key moment in Gavin's
musical life. “Yes . . . Gavin could have written his name
backwards after seeing that concert. It pulled him inside out.” He
paused, feeling the pressure of an untold story rise up in him with
the nausea of suppressed emotion. “I never told anyone this story
before, but . . . I feel I have to tell it now. It might have died
with me on the floor of my bookshop.” He took a long drink from his
<i>Maudite</i> and continued. “I remember it was a Friday the
thirteenth, July, and I didn't really want to travel with our second
cousin in his Mini, but the three of us piled in and away we went.
You can imagine the three of us smoking cigarettes in that little
thing, God! Anyway, we arrive in Manchester and we buy our tickets
and Duncan and Miles go into the bathroom to smoke weed which I
didn't like to do, so I went outside for fresh air and I wandered
around the building. Miles had warned me to be careful what with my
Canadian accent and healthy tanned skin, I might be a target for
local toughs. So I'm walking around the side of the place and make my
way behind and I see a tall slim guy with shortish hair, dark dress
pants and shirt grinding a cigarette out with the soul of his shoe
and I sort of nod thinking he probably worked there as a stage
manager or something, and he asks me if I have a cigarette. I say
<i>Yeah, sure, </i>and open my pack of<i> Bellevederes”</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You and your
Bellevederes,” Tom said, “always that nice blue pack in you jean
jacket pocket.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, I know, I liked that brand, my
colour. Well, I offer him one and I strike a match for him, he holds
his long fingered hands around mine to protect the flame, and after
the first deep puff, he exhales and says, <i>Bellevedere</i> with a
wistful tone, which was kind of ironic seeing we were standing in an
environment of cracked pavements and brick dust. He asks me if I was
American, and I tell him I was from Montreal, Canada, visiting family
in Macclesfield. His eyes widened at this. They were rather intense
and you felt they were looking through you at the same time they were
looking inwards. At that moment a man came out and called him in. He
looked at me and said thanks and walked away. I checked my watch,
finished my cigarette and made my way back inside.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Wait a minute, are you telling us—”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, you can imagine I was kind of
surprized when the guy who bummed a cigarette off me was standing
there, centre stage, breaking into these dark emotive songs that
seemed to have sprung from industrial wastelands. Their first song
was just a wall of noise to me. I can't remember what it was. Didn't
seem to have any lyrics.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Why didn't you tell us?” Yves
asked.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“It's complicated. First of all, there we were, healthy, sun-tanned
twins from leafy, green pleasant Notre Dame-de-Grace, face to face
with Manchester's grim and gritty conditions, the first months of
Thatcherdom, and it all seemed unreal. It wasn't where I wanted to
be, but Gavin, Gavin thought he'd found the motherlode, heard the
music of his soul. He was bouncing up and down and shaking back and
forth, loosing himself in the beat, and I sort of made my way to the
side and watched from afar. It was amazing. When Ian Curtis went into
his trance-like dance moves, it was bizarre. I'd never seen anything
like it. Coming from Canada where the airwaves were awash in Barry
Manilow, Kiss and Sean Cassidy, this new music just severed all the
crap from us, but with Gavin it was like he shed a skin. After the
concert he said he'd wished he'd been born in Manchester rather than
Montreal, and he might have been up there on stage with something to
sing about like that singer.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Gavin never mentioned your meeting
Ian Curtis,” Tom said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's just it. I never told him.
That's sort of why I'm getting it off my chest now. He became so
obsessed with the band right after the show, I couldn't tell him I
shared a cigarette with the singer. It would have ruined it between
us. So I let it go. And anyway, the band wasn't on any map we knew
of. When the band became better known and Ian Curtis died, well, I
definitely couldn't tell him. And when Gavin died it was almost like
an unfinished link between us, something we had never shared,
something to hold on to.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tom and Yves stood there, open mouthed,
beers in hand. “Jesus Dunc, that's like an unexploded bomb just
went off. Save the pieces as my Italian Mother says, save the
pieces.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Our tastes were so different. In the
late 70s I was discovering the great music on the ECM label, all Jan
Gabarek, Ralph Towner, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, meanwhile Gavin
was zeroing in on punk and post punk raunchiness. I remember thinking
<i>The Splices</i> were already splitting as Gavin danced in that
Manchester club.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yves went behind the counter and pulled
out a CD, a compilation of <i>Joy Division. </i>“Any
requests,” he asked.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan
thought for a bit. “I always liked <i>Disorder</i>,”
he said.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They
stood around drinking their beers, tapping their feet to the building
momentum of the song as it filled the shop with its black and white palette, as fresh to his ears as a Paul-Emile Borduas composition was to his eyes. It
had been a day of revelations. His life was shifting and spinning in
the shadows towards an unknown future. Only that morning he'd
discovered in the very old <i>Strand Cordage Ltd</i>. business papers that his paternal surname
was not really Strand, but MacAdam. His Great-Grandfather having
changed it when leaving Scotland. Something to do with debts. All
those years he thought, all those years of believing in a mere name.
He felt he was only Duncan now, and even that name he felt was
shifting, as if the “C” in his first name had been reversed and
he was sprawled in the concavity of its shape, stranded in the bottom
of his given name, trying to climb out, dizzy with the beer, and the
sound of <i>Disorder</i>.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 15px;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-47753066328705174152014-08-29T00:22:00.002-04:002014-08-29T00:22:36.637-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Eighty One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To have stood before her Mother's door
like an eavesdropper, to have quietly passed the others with their Christmas decorations—sleigh bells,
pine cones and Macintosh bows, a quilted Santa Claus with reindeer, a
Joyeux Noël garden gnome, snowmen silhouettes, a crèche vignette
carved out of linden wood (the result of personal choice or that of
their offspring?)—and to have listened to the piped-in music of
<i>Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, </i>she'd felt she'd emerged from the elevator to a level where everything was monitored,
and silence—an evocation of death—was forbidden; the music, like
a psychotropic drug, massaging her consciousness into docility. The
hallway with its blue patterned carpeting, upholstered chairs,
occasional tables, lamps, mirrors and framed prints of happy
landscapes and flowering glades, had seemed to her a facsimile refuge
from true reality. Sitting beside her Mother now, she imagined
herself trapped in this warm, dry environment of meals, medications,
overhead announcements, games and activities like a captive on an
endless cruise over a waveless sea. Once more the sounds of Christmas
carols, this time nature inspired—<i>Good King Wenscelas</i> with
the distant cawing of crows—seeped under the door from the hallway
while her Mother laughed in response to a witty remark on the
television by Pénélope McQuade. Isabelle smiled and casually
glanced towards the entrance where a strip of light on the carpeting
projected from the ever-lit hallway made her think of a chalk line on
a running track. The start? The finish?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tu es pressé Isabelle?” her
Mother asked, holding the television remote like a weapon holding her
hostage.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Isabelle reassured her she wasn't in a
hurry and had only been stretching her neck.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Elle est si drôle ce Pénélope,”
her Mother said, placing the remote between her thigh and the arm of
the chair. “Si mignonne.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Isabelle restrained herself from
telling her Mother how Pénélope's pixie hairstyles had influenced
young women viewers. Hadn't she too once had her hair trimmed and
styled much like the television host? She recalled now that
Pénélope's father's first name was Winston, an unusual name, and
wondered if the source had been the character in that famous book
she'd read while in private school. She always got the books mixed
up. Was it <i>Nineteen Eighty Four</i>, or <i>Brave New World</i>? It
seemed so long ago. Winston something or other. Winston Churchill.
Winston Graham. Winston cigarettes. Winston . . . .
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She glanced at the white and red
poinsettia plants she'd brought as a gift. They would soon dry out
and drop their leaves to become spindly skeletons of themselves. Her
Mother would then ask to have them taken away. Revivified or tossed
she'd never know. Just another marketed tradition. She wondered if
white poinsettias had made inroads in the funeral business. Her
Mother had already outlined her preferences for her own funeral,
large triangular shaped floral arrangements in vases with white and
mauve blooms, and for the reception, floral tributes with a greater
variety of colours and shapes. Much the same for her own funeral she
thought if she pursued the David Ashemore case. What would it be? A
car accident? A poison induced heart attack? A staged suicide? A
mugging? She could see her sisters going through her belongings, her
dresses, shoes, sweaters, jewelry, keeping desired items before
hiring an estate company to take over the undesired contents. They
would use her kitchen, her bathroom, perhaps even use her old
toothbrush to clean the built-up dust on certain owl figurines and
sculptures. Jokes would be made about an owl fetish. Small talk about
collecting manias and stories of people who collected oddities like
combination locks with forgotten combinations, or the exuviae of
cicadas and scorpions. Her own treasures would be dispersed at
discount prices and the remnant filtered through the Salvation Army
system, picked over, judged.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And her ex-husband Nick? Would he show
up at the funeral with but another fresh-faced limpet barely into her
twenties? Maybe one on each arm, a blonde and a brunette. They
flocked to him like fruit flies to an ageing banana. He was a walking
cliché of virility. She recalled the day she'd met him while on Mount
Royal sitting on a bench reading a psychology textbook. He'd come
jogging towards her, stopped to catch his breath, caught her eye, and
joked about how he had to work off that spanakopita. Next thing she
knew, he'd invited her to his Greek restaurant. She always remembered
the sight of his powerful calves, the first thing she'd observed when
she'd raised her eyes. His dark-toned skin, hairy forearms, that two
o'clock shadow, those playful eyes. Of course her Mother thought it
was her fault for losing him. What could she do? Nick was a ladies
man. It was his genetic disposition. The restaurant provided him with
a constant supply of young women. Word of mouth did the rest. She
would see them walking by the restaurant, stopping to read the menu,
but really looking through the glass to see if he was there. That was
his lot in life. Being Nick's wife wasn't hers. Though she did miss
his spanakopita.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She covered her mouth and quietly
burped. Dinner tonight—overcooked pork chops, boiled potatoes,
carrot and turnip mash, followed by apple pie with a dollop of
vanilla ice cream (an English chef?)—if not memorable, had at least
kept her busy while trying to choose subjects of conversation mundane
enough to avoid gossipy neighbouring ears. Dinner with her Mother was
always contentious. Other daughters visited with their husbands,
their children. Residents would nod to her and say hello, but she
could read their minds: ah, yes, the single one, the divorcée, the
forensic something or other. There was the bald man in an old grey
suit who always sat by himself in the middle of the dining room
staring ahead as if he was watching a film on a big screen. Everyone
else were in groups of three, four or five. When she stayed for
dinner she would sit at the special tables for visitors and her
Mother's companions would wave from their table, a trio instead of
the usual quartette. The first, the tiny Mrs. Gagnon with her
pleasant smile, couldn't hear very well, the second, Mrs. Castonquay,
tall and stern, rarely talked, and the third, the healthy, red
cheeked Miss Clement never stopped talking, “fatiguant” her
Mother would say, manipulating her hand like a puppet. She often
scanned the tables and could imagine the cliques and cabals much like
in high school, though a hubristic inversion had occurred. No longer
was it how much money one's Father made, the circle of self-esteem
was now a mathematical formula consisting of the number of children
one had and their levels of achievement, combined with the number of
grandchildren, multiplied by the number of visits and demonstrations
of affection which provided the fluctuating lines on the graph of
pecking order prestige. Pilots for major airlines still held a
tremendous caché she'd learnt in that casual confinement of trifling
conversations otherwise known as an elevator. She'd been entertained
by an elderly Mr. Forget in his sweater vest and soup-stained tie
informing her, with the occasional wink and a touch on her forearm,
of his apartment view over the old grounds to the south east where
the great poet Emile Nelligan had spent his last years in the old
asylum for troubled minds. Wasn't a day, he'd said, that he didn't
think of him. She had listened to the elderly gentleman, looked him
in the eyes, even touched his hand with a show of empathy, and seeing
the wrinkled loose skin between his thumb and fingers, had been
reminded of the soft ripples of Bahamian sand that she and Nick had
walked upon during their honeymoon, a stroll in the shallows, a
shoreline emblematic of their challenging relationship, the back and
forth, the rise and fall, the warmth and the cold, the pleasures and
the dangers, the very diastole and systole of Mother earth. Her
Mother had later informed her that Mr. Forget's son was a pilot, and
the envy of them all. When he visited there was always a rise in
attention levels. Jacques Forget, pilot, not a crease out of place,
his blue black hair perfectly coiffed like a young Cary Grant. He
could very well have been the pilot who few them to the Caribbean for
their honeymoon years ago. She could see the elderly Mr. Forget now,
shuffling down the hall towards his room, a departure sans adieu, his
soft voice reciting a poem by Nelligan—at least she supposed—the
words spoken half to himself and half to the ghosts around him.
Ghosts. Perhaps the ghost of David Ashemore had accompanied him down
the hallway, a brief lyrical diversion from haunting her thoughts
with his unfinished business concerning Jarvis Whitehorne.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Since receiving the note from what she
assumed was Thérèse Laflamme, she'd researched Whitehorne only to
discover that his company had been purchased by a large American
conglomerate over six months ago, and his yacht, <i>Revenant IX,</i>
had been recovered off the coast of Antigua five weeks ago, listing
heavily to the starboard having taken on water. No one aboard. The
whereabouts of Whitehorne still under investigation. Clive Saunders
who'd taken over Ashemore's job had told her—<i>off the record, you
didn't hear it from me</i>—that he'd learnt of Whitehorne's shady
international connections selling biotech. They had arranged to meet
at a dépanneur, and he had talked quietly while holding a tin of baked
beans with maple syrup as if discussing the delicacy of the after
taste. Whitehorne had developed an implant device, he'd told her.
Nano-technology. A sort of fail-safe button: “Remote activation
providing termination of host.” Cold phraseology for distance
execution. Saunders had left her with the rumour that future
applications could be introduced like a vaccine. If the individual
became problematic later in life, “File, delete. In a future world
facing climate change, overpopulation, scarcity of food, fuel and
clean water . . . “ he'd shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate
human life would be cheap. It made Whitehorne's other methods, his
acronyms of aggression, positively sophomoric: <i>FIST</i>:
fabricate, isolate, slander, traduce. <i>THAW</i>: thwart, hinder,
annul, wither. “In the future,” Saunders had said, “prisons
would no longer be affordable. Cheap labour would be replaced by
robots. Unrest and criminality nipped in the bud.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Standing in the aisle of a convenience
store listening to these theoretical projections while pretending
interest in cheap spaghetti sauce and cans of beef vegetable soup all
to the soundtrack of <i>Owner of a Lonely Heart</i> coming from the
store speakers had drained her of all hope, and made her feel as chipped
and cracked as the stained linoleum beneath her feet. A prolonged
silence that could be interpreted as defeat had left her numb with the sense of how easy such an implant could be abused. Just who would
be the ultimate file manager?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She looked at her Mother, safe,
content, well taken care of, holding on to the shirt tails of world
affairs in her battle against irrelevance; and yet her daily news fix
was but a surface skim, a pure injection would probably finish her
off. It strangely made Isabelle think of an incident on a nearby lawn last
summer, a cat attacking a mourning dove, and her attempts to save the
bloodied winged bird from what appeared to be a lovely white domestic
short-haired with a collar, yet as wild eyed and transfixed
as someone before a computer screen. Her chasing the cat away had
been a mere interlude of unreality to the feline brain feeding on its
depths of instinct. There she had stood, a woman in the middle,
between the cat and the pigeon, challenged by the nature of morals,
and the morals of nature. Whosoever will be saved?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Listless and overcome with fatigue, Isabelle stared vacantly ahead, bathed in the cerulean glow of civilization.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 15px;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-26450886720047639532014-07-28T18:03:00.001-04:002014-09-18T15:39:36.481-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Eighty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio0P2VKqSO5hoksYOSQoVwMcyoZRey9b_I2n0rbBj9nMFhwoIG65WlwhUhIJxVnUdZ326uFkrIsN85-UF53PkiT0KO6CeL3LGOHkPu7sRYVWeKZidoUHnw6nHUvhV39CFMCvWMww/s1600/watts2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio0P2VKqSO5hoksYOSQoVwMcyoZRey9b_I2n0rbBj9nMFhwoIG65WlwhUhIJxVnUdZ326uFkrIsN85-UF53PkiT0KO6CeL3LGOHkPu7sRYVWeKZidoUHnw6nHUvhV39CFMCvWMww/s1600/watts2.jpg" height="200" width="167" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After setting the alarm—using the
numbers of his wife's birth date—Arthur Roquebrune switched off the
hall light and exited <i>Wormwood & Verdigris</i>. Even he, after
so many years, still thought of the firm by the old dual name instead
of the inclusive <i>Wormwood, Verdigris & Roquebrune</i>. Habit
no doubt. The Wormwoods and the Verdrigris's were into their fourth,
and seemingly last, generation of lawyers. Arthur thought of them as
an alloy of addendums working out of the original, old Greystone
mansion. He was a mere second generation Roquebrune following in his
Father's wake—who had died young before attaining partnership
status—and a name his dear wife had had previsions of being
Roquebrune & Assoc., once the old guard, who Edward Seymour
light-heartedly referred to as <i>Dither & Bicker</i>, had
retired.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The secretary and his partners in the
law firm had left hours ago, but he'd stayed on to finish up some
loose ends and to make sure all the windows and doors were secured,
all electronics turned off, and everything ship-shape—as Wormwood
liked to say being an avid weekend sailor—for the holiday period.
He'd spent the last hour in the basement archives, an unintended
diversion having merely walked in to inspect that all was as it
should have been. He had passed the empty shelves where David
Ashemore's papers had been stored, and had shifted a number of filing
boxes over to help dispel that memory of failed service. As he had
been ready to close the door he'd looked up to see the Verdigris
collection of Lovell's Montreal Street Directories from1842-1888,
small volumes rebound in sturdy library bindings of oxblood cloth,
gilt titles and dates on the spine. Scaling the small ladder, he'd
taken down various volumes from the early years and turned the pages
to read the names and professions from the past: grocers and
painters, masons and joiners, tailors and carters, labourers and
notaries, bricklayers and blacksmiths, ship carpenters and tinsmiths,
coachmakers and hucksters, clerks and coopers, furriers and curriers,
a diversity of professions that had swept all thought of the present
aside and filled him with visions of skilled workers plying their
trades in cold, ill-lit rooms. When he'd come across the firm of
advocates with the name of <i>Hubert, Ouimet & Morin</i> he
thought of the many contemporaries with those surnames, some he knew,
and all likely able to trace branches of their families back to those
servants of the law, who in turn could have traced their ancestry
back to the earliest Huberts, Ouimets and Morins who had set foot in
New France. The one name that stayed with him as he descended the old
stone staircase to the sidewalk, however, was the wonderful name of
<i>Venant Huberdeau,</i> and his profession, <i>ashes inspector</i>.
<i>Venant</i>, what a wonderful old, and out of fashion, name he
thought, much like the old <i>Amable</i>. He pressed the button on
his key chain and heard the doors of his car unlock, a reassuring
sound, a command of casual power and control. Ashes inspector? He had
never come across the term before. He pulled out into the light
evening traffic on Sherbrooke Street, a light drizzle falling, and
headed to his home in Outremont. His wife had left a meal for him to
reheat as she was out shopping and having dinner with her sister and
no doubt exchanging stories of recent events and past family history,
evocations of familiar anxieties and pleasures that the Christmas
period tended to arouse, and no doubt confounding each other with
conflicting memories as often befall siblings: <i>It wasn't you who
experienced that . . . No, it wasn't in the fall . . . You've got
that all wrong. . . . </i>their
voices like witnesses offering inconclusive and contrary evidence.
Ashes inspector? As he came to a stop at the corner of Guy and
Sherbrooke, he thought of David Ashemore, the name stirred up by the
strange profession. After the theft of the papers, and the occurrence
with Thérèse he'd been worried over a possible threat to himself
or his wife, visions of his car exploding upon pressing the ignition,
images induced from watching too many spy and suspense movies. But
no, it had only been a ghostly visitation, an unwonted spectral
alluvion upon the shores of their normality. And then life had gone
on as usual. He was thankful. There might well have been someone
inspecting the ashes of his demise. Possibly a descendent of one
Venant Huberdeau.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He drove up Chemin de la
Côte-des-Neiges towards Dr. Penfield avenue thinking he would have
his dinner and then finish his glass of wine while looking over his
translations of poems by Thomas Gray and Paul Valery. He'd thought of
a few changes to the nineteenth stanza of Valery's <i>Cimetière
Marin</i> while he'd been washing his hands in the office bathroom,
the mundane everyday actions releasing the creative subrosa insights,
acting as doors to that other mind working away in the shadows like
an overlooked and under-appreciated associate.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Once more Mrs. Shimoda
shuffled the Japan Air Lines deck of cards with their stylized cover
image of cranes in flight. She looked to her side table where the
Christmas card for Amelia and Duncan lay, an expensive paper envelope
of weight and texture, a fine hand having addressed the envelope with
what she could tell was a quality fountain pen, the name on the
reverse, <i>Declan-Westlake Entreprises</i> with a flourish beneath.
It had been put in her mailbox by mistake. She'd wait till tomorrow
to bring it to them. She had no desire to disturb their first evening
at home since Duncan's health dilemma.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She spread four cards out
for her tenth game of Solitaire, <i>Aces Up</i>, a game that would soon reach a threshold of boredom, but she had been feeling
open to the ways of chance, perhaps inspired by the accidental
delivery of the Christmas card. The statistical variations of the
fifty two cards and her manipulation of them were so different from
her regular pastime of puzzles and Sudoku; she had to allow for the
uncontrollable, the invisible hand that oversaw her shuffling and
play. She wondered if the cards reacted to moods? They were
recalcitrant tonight. She placed an ace of hearts beneath the king of
hearts and realised it was unlikely she would be able to shift the
ace up, so she swept the cards together and shuffled them once again.
To forfeit a game against an invisible hand was no forfeit in this
world. As she shuffled, she looked at her small white Christmas tree
with its blue lights and decorations sitting on the table beneath the
front window, and remembered the day she purchased it at Ogilvy's
department store many, many years ago. Ogilvy's. How many times had
they taken their son to look at the store's famous holiday window
display? A good ten, twelve years she thought. A clever arrangement
of moving toys, Santa's workshop or a landscape of gingerbread
fantasy with cotton candy chimney smoke. What had it been last year
she wondered? A farm scene, yes, animals at the farm. Now it was her
son's turn to take her to see the display window. He would pick her
up early on Christmas mornings, they would drive by the window, get
out if the weather allowed, and then return to his house for the day
and the festive dinner.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Looking at her small
calendar beside her cup of green tea, she saw that in a few days it
would be <i>Tozi</i>, winter solstice, a time to follow the old
ritual and drink cold saké and take a hot bath with slices of yuzu
to keep her from catching cold during the long Montreal winter. She'd
yet to have a flu shot. The bath with yuzu was good enough for her.
And then after the Christmas period, would be the great last day,
Omisoka, the threshold of the old and the new year. Her son had given
her an internet link in an email where she could visit to watch and
listen to the one hundred and eight strokes of the temple bells. She
looked forward to sipping her amazake and hearing the tolling bells,
one strike for each of the earthly temptations and illusions that so
many were blinded by. She imagined people stumbling along a path, one
they could neither see nor master, which reminded her of an old
painting by a Dutch artist, the blind leading the blind into a river.
Where had she seen it? In a book? Or had it been at the museum? The
faces had been grotesque, nightmarish. A cold, northern cautionary
tale.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She dealt out four cards to
start another game and was bewildered by the appearance of the four
kings. She was about to gather them up to shuffle again when she
began to look at them closely, perhaps for the first time, noticing
the richly coloured and geometrically patterned clothes and the fact
that one of the kings, the King of Hearts, did not have a moustache.
The younger king she thought, the sensitive, thoughtful one. How odd
they depict him with his sword held behind his head making it look as
if he was impaling himself.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A pale self-portrait of
Jerome with his eyes closed, his thick brown hair, eyelashes and
facial hair now grey, his features wan and almost glass-like. Thérèse
read the title he'd had written on a back edge of the unframed
painting, <i>The Eidolon of Odilon Redon</i>, and then turned it over
once more to look at the what she could only see as a haunted, faded
image of her fiancé.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It was P. K.'s
suggestion,” Jerome said coming up behind her with a wooden tray
with various cheeses and sliced baguette.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“This?” she said,
gesturing with the painting in her hands.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome felt the negative
sting of that one word. “No . . . the movie, <i>The Third Man.
</i>Pavor was surprized I'd never seen it.” Putting the tray on the
table beside the wine glasses, he stood beside her. “Just an
experimental study in the techniques after Redon. Don't worry, it
isn't my inverse Dorian Gray.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I was
making copies of Redon's charcoal <i>noirs</i>, his nightmarish
visions, and I decided to try a self-portrait inspired by his <i>Les
yeux clos</i>.” He went over to the DVD player and inserted the
movie he'd borrowed from the library. “I can always paint over the
canvas. My phantom face hiding beneath a heavy striped mini Molinari,
or even a Remedios Varo.” His mind drifted off as he thought of
Varo's <i>Coincidencia</i>, a painting he'd wanted to replicate for
its subtle colour palate.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thérèse slipped the
painting back behind a group of half-finished canvases leaning
against the wall. “It's a bit creepy. You're as pale as that brie.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sorry Tess. I hope you
can forget . . . .” They looked into each others eyes and then
began to laugh. “I'm so glad you're healthy,” he said, hugging her.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Not after seeing that
painting!” she said pinching his bum. They hugged each other
tightly. “So, <i>The Third Man</i>? Doesn't sound romantic. I was
hoping we could re-watch <i>Prête-moi tas main,</i>
or <i>Les émotifs anonyms, </i>or
even <i>Bridget Jones's Diary.”</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“We'll have time for
those,” he said wondering how many Bridget Jones's Diaries he could
take before he cracked. “It's all because of Redon. I was talking
to Pavor about the<i> noirs</i> and he thought this movie would fit
well, supposedly full of shadow and light, strange angles, atmosphere
. . . and intrigue. I believe there's a love interest too.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Is it set at Christmas?”
she said reaching for a slice of baguette.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Umm, I don't think so.
But Pavor went on and on about it being a classic, a must see.” He
read the back of the DVD case. “I can understand why he likes the
movie, it says here it's about a writer who goes to post-war Vienna
to find an old friend.” Jerome put the case down and poured the
wine.“He did say if they ever remade the movie, he thought the
actor Colin Firth would be good for one of the parts.” Knowing she
liked the debonair actor, he thought this might ease her into the
movie.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I wonder if he thinks
he's . . . cursed?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Colin Firth?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She laughed. “Yes, cursed
with too much charm. No, I meant Pavor. First he goes to Italy and
encounters a man who has an accident and falls into a brief coma.
Then he comes back to Montreal, and the husband of Amelia collapses
and also goes into a strange sleep. And then there's what happened to
me in Bergen, and we meet him at the airport.” Jerome was silent.
“You know, with his having lost his wife and child, he might think
he's cursed.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They prepared slices of
bread with cheese as the question hovered between them like a
hummingbird.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome eased himself back on
the couch and chewed. He didn't see a correlation. It was fanciful.
Things happen. “I don't think he's cursed. It's just life. When you
move around, things happen.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She nodded her head. “Yes,
but what's <i>his</i> perception?” She sipped her wine and looked
at him sideways. “Remember the essay on Isadora Duncan I wrote?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome nodded but was vague
on the details.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“She thought she was
cursed by man-made machines.” Thérèse shook her head. “Remember
she lost her two young children in a car accident? The chauffeur
swerved to avoid an accident, the car stalled, and when he got out to
crank the thing up, the brakes slipped and it bolted like a spooked
horse across the road and down the grassy embankment into the river.
The two children and their Scottish nurse drowned. Then she was
pregnant with her third child and the doctor couldn't get to her due
to being held up in traffic. A commotion about the war with the
Germans. The doctor was too late. The child, stillborn. And of course
her own death, her scarf caught in the rear wheels of the car she was
in.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, I remember now.
Horrific deaths.” He sipped his wine and swished it through his
teeth and over his tongue. “That holiday when we visited Neuilly, I
made some sketches of you under the trees near the barges. It could
have been the place where the car went into the Seine.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thérèse kept to her
subject. “She was a natural free spirit, the first to dance
barefoot. When we saw Margie Gillis dance barefoot at Parc
Lafontaine, she was channelling her inner Isadora.” She paused as
she thought of the contemporary Montreal dancer and wondered what she
was up to of late. “She reached back to the sibyls and sylphs,
stirring up their mythological roots. Isadora was channelling the
divine feminine”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Dance has such deep
roots, doesn't it. Elemental.” Jerome paused as he recalled that
particular visit to Paris. “That was the same trip I dragged you
from the river bank to see where Marcel Duchamp lived, remember? The
corner apartment building?”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She lifted her eyebrows.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm, yes, not the most
interesting of our little excursions. Not even a plaque.” He
pressed the play button on the DVD remote control. A close-up image
of resonating strings over the sound hole of a zither provided the
background to the opening credits and they began to tap their feet to
the jaunty music. “If Pavor feels he's cursed, he seems to be
dealing with it well. It's a difficult subject to bring up with him.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, I can imagine.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“If we don't like this
movie, or if it brings up memories of the intrigue you were involved
with, we can stop it. I also brought home<i> Le Fabuleux destin
d'Amélie Poulain.</i> Just in case.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thérèse drew her legs up
onto the couch and snuggled close to Jerome. She sipped her wine. She
didn't want to remember David Ashemore and his sufferings. The
character assassination with its slander, traducements, hindrances,
fabrications. His waking up in the middle of the night with ringing
ears; his neck, shoulders and spine stiff with tension, his jaw
muscles and gums sore from grinding his teeth due to what he had
termed <i>remote acoustic microwave provocation</i>, or <i>RAMP, </i>the
feeling that he'd been cooked and atrophied while trying to sleep<i>.
</i>She hadn't told Jerome the details about the case. It was too
fantastical. He would have raised his eyebrows. No one wants to know
about such things. And the implant? No, he wouldn't have believed
her. Better for him<i> not</i> to know. He had enough <i>noir </i>as
it was. From now on, she thought, she would concentrate on writing
about the arts, sports, travel and local history. She'd leave the
intrigue to the intriguers.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor relaxed in his chair
at the <i>Dominion Square Tavern </i>and
finished off the last of his wine<i>.</i> Seeing that
Melisande was attending her librarian party, he'd decided to treat
himself to a meal at one of his Father's old hang-outs. The place had
been fairly quiet for a Wednesday evening, but there were office
parties and Christmas shopping to consider. People were busy. He had
enjoyed his witlof and blue cheese salad, musssels and fries, and
two glasses of dry white wine. As he wiped his lips, he could almost
see his Father at the bar with some of his fellow lawyers amidst
plumes of cigarette smoke. What yarns they must have entertained each
other with during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Episodic tales of golf
shots, holidays and pretty barmaids no doubt. He looked around at the
scattered diners and the small group at the bar and wondered what
they did for a living. Stockbrokers, media personalities, engineers .
. . or lawyers like his old man? May he rest in peace. Pavor's mind
shifted to his work in progress. What to do with Rex Packard and
Vernon Smythe? How to bring Evan Dashmore back into the story? How to
develop a love interest? These questions ticker-taped their way
through his conscious thoughts and back into the depths for more
consideration as he decided to pay his bill and go on his way.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As he left the tavern and
began walking towards St. Catherine Street, he welcomed the fresh air
upon his face, but he felt it was too damp for the walk home. He
would take the metro to Atwater and walk up to his apartment, make
some green tea and look over his work. Bringing the collar of his
long wool coat up around his ears, he made his way north in the
evening air.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Loveridge?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Not recognizing the voice,
Pavor didn't quite hear his name.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The large man behind him
called out again, “The writer, P. K. Loveridge?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor stopped and turned
around to see none other than Fitz, the professor of contempt,
walking hurriedly towards him. He'd lost the baseball cap and was now
wearing a fur-lined aviator hat, ear-flaps flapping in the wind.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I thought that was you.
What are the chances eh?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yes, Pavor thought, what
were the chances. “Fitz, from <i>The Word</i> bookstore right?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“As we live and breathe.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor continued walking
towards St. Catherine Street, Fitz scuffing along beside him. He was
concerned that Fitz would tag along and find out where he lived. He
might have to initiate evasive tactics. “I'm just on my way home.
Very tired. An early night for me.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, most writers tend to
do their best work in the mornings don't they.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor nodded his head,
feeling he'd gained a point, enough that he offered a response.
“Well, some writers worked the night shift. Mishima comes to mind.”
He couldn't think of another.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, an unfortunate case.
I enjoyed his tetralogy though. The four different characters through
time having the same arrangement of moles was a clever device to
weave his story around metempsychosis.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor wondered if he was a
literature professor. “So, what do you do Fitz? For a living.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Cultural anthropology. A
small New England college. I'm just up here on a visit. Staying with
friends on Chemin de Casson.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor inwardly groaned as
the street was but a few blocks away from his apartment. They would
exit at the same metro station. At least he was just visiting. “For
a visitor, you seem to be well-known at the bookshop.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, well, that's just my
personality. I'm a talker. Not afraid to throw my name around. I've
been dropping by the store every day this week. I've also made daily
calls at another shop as well, on Stanley Street I think, <i>Odyssey
Bookstore</i>. They have a high quality selection of scholarly books.
Not many bookshops left these days. You're lucky to have two such
fine establishments.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor thought that Fitz had
achieved more familiarity in a week than he'd done in years of quiet,
introspective browsing. He was never one to throw his name around.
“Are you heading to the Peel metro station?”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I am.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Looks like we're going
the same direction then.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The crowds of Christmas
shoppers hindered Fitz's response and their parallel progress. It was
only by the time they reached de Maisonneuve boulevard that they were
able to resume their conversation.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“So, Pavor, do you set
your novels in Montreal?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How did he now his first
name he wondered? The cars passed them, tires hissing in the liquid
snow. He should have grabbed a taxi. “Some of the actions take
place here, but many other settings as well. Europe, the United
States.” He didn't like talking about his books. They made their
way across the street and into the Metro entrance. Pavor stopped to
give a young man holding an empty Tim Horton's cup some change. He
noticed his ripped coat and torn running shoes, and wondered,
ashamedly, if it was a set costume. As they made their descent on the
escalator, he scanned the faces of those riding up searching for a
friend or an acquaintance who could possibly forestall his literary
inquisitor, but even smiling with his eyes at the pretty women did
not elicit a recognition. His literary persona didn't have much caché
in his home town it seemed. No fan with a copy of his book in their
bag. No one looking for his autograph. No one knew who he was. He was
just another tired commuter. As they made their way through the
turnstiles, they heard the trains leaving the station and felt the
warm, stale air rush past them as it it was trying to escape to the
hallowed atmosphere above, the mothership.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Set in the past, or
contemporary narratives?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor loosened his scarf.
“Present day. I'm not one for the recent past.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They made their way down the
short flight of stairs to the station platform and walked towards an
empty bench. “Yes, writing about certain aspects of Montreal's past
might be undesirable these days. No one wants to be reminded of the
October crisis, or the CIA involvement with psychiatric experiments
and such things.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor stopped and turned to
look at Fitz, wondering exactly who he was.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Water under the bridge
and all that,” Fitz said. “Montreal's a city of festivals and
savoir-faire. It's thriving again. The culture industry has a firm
grip. Young people flock here to become part of the local scene. It's
hip right? The past is behind them as my Montreal friends keep
telling me. Avoid bringing up those subjects they say. Good advice
don't you think.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They sat on the bench. Pavor
began to doubt his meeting Fitz was coincidental.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Fitz is an unusual name?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A broad smile revealed
rather pointy eye teeth. “A nickname I picked up along the way.
When younger I was smitten with Herzog's film <i>Fitzcarraldo</i>,
and my fraternity brethren branded me thus. It stuck. Like a
riverboat in mud.” He winked.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor looked across at the
eastbound platform where a young man stared at him. A mere stranger,
or one of Fitz's accomplices? His earbuds really a communication
device? Paranoia began to colour the narrative unfolding around him.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Do you sell many books?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Enough to keep me going.”
Pavor crossed his long legs. “<i>Amazon</i> certainly helps. My
agent tells me I sell a lot of ebooks through them.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah yes, no doubt, no
doubt.” Fitz crossed his legs and slightly turned towards his
companion. “It's interesting how they named the company after the
Amazons of our classical past, co-opting a feminine archetype for an
aggressive male dominated business. A little pun there. Mail, male.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor nodded broadly. “Ah,
very good.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The Amazons were
emblematic defenders of the old Matriarchy,” Fitz continued,
“battling at the threshold of change. Male rituals and the
exclusion of women developed. The overt displays of body paint and
tattoos. The beginnings of the plough cutting into Mother earth.”
He paused as a loud indecipherable announcement issued from the
speakers. “Have you ever noticed their logo?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It's just their name
isn't it?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, yes, but underneath
there is a curved arrow which is also a smile, going from the letter
A to the letter Z. Very clever indeed. Everything from A to Z. But if
you look closely, the arrow, or smile, looks very much like a penis.
Patriarchy personified. Domination of the feminine principle.
Practically an image of penetration.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor raised an eyebrow.
“That's quite an interesting observation there Fitz.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They paused as a group of
students passed with their shoulder bags and cell phones, a happy
group, smiling, laughing, the exams being over. Pavor recognized they
were speaking Cantonese, a language he'd tried to learn once.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The matriarchal religion
of the Minoans with their Snake Goddess was perhaps the true end of
the line. Such an astonishing image, her large breasts bared as was
the norm in that society, a snake in each hand, firmly gripped and
controlled. A feminine principle and a spirit to bow down before. And
of course the Minoans had those athletic female bull leapers.” He
gently touched Pavor's arm. “Spain's bull fight is rather a sad
inversion of this don't you think?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor could feel the air
pressure change as he heard a distant hum emerge from the train
tunnel, but he was unable to tell from which direction it emanated.
Spain, bullfights, Hemingway. Perhaps Fitz was right he thought.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“And of course the Cretan
labyrinth and the defeat of the Minotaur by Theseus reveals the rise
of the Greek power over the waning Minoan culture with its
matriarchal roots. Patriarchy and paranoia can perhaps be brought
back to that point.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After having enjoyed a
lovely meal and put his mind at ease with two glasses of wine, Fitz's
revelations were over-stimulating. Pavor's cup was running over.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It's my belief,” Fitz
went on, “that the prevalence of tattoos is the unconscious
reaction against the rise of women's power, and the women who take
part in these decorative displays are fighting back, unconsciously of
course. These are all cultural undercurrents that most of us are
unaware of.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I'd never thought of it
that way. Interesting.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“GPS and Siri could be
seen as modern day divination. Do you use them by any chance?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor shook his head to the
negative. They stood up and awaited the arrival of the blue and white
train.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Siri is a Norwegian word
for a beautiful woman who guides you to success,” Fitz said,
slightly raising his voice to compensate for the rising noise.
“Woman's voices are used in the United States and Australia but in
Britain, it's a man's voice. Telling that.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor nodded his head,
feeling a bit unsteady on his feet. The metro slowed down before
them.
<br />
<br />
"Are you on of those authors who pontificates about how to write?"<br />
<br />
Pavor was surprized by the question. "Actually I find writers who blab on about how to write are generally ones who are defending their own particular style. Very reductive. Why restrain the imaginative approach to anything?"<br />
<br />
The doors to the metro opened before them like on the old Star Trek television series. “Into the dark labyrinth
of tunnels we go,” Fitz said, as they entered.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
When Pavor finally arrived
home, he slipped his boots off and dropped his coat on the chair and
flung himself down upon the chesterfield. It was still early but he
felt he could easily get into bed. He could leave a note for
Melisande. He placed a hand over his eyes to shield him from the
lamplight, and though he tried to clear his mind, the words of Fitz
kept revolving in his thoughts. They had parted at the corner of
Sherbrooke and Atwater after he'd listened to Fitz's parting joke
about knowing an author who could draw a crowd: <i>give him a pencil
and paper, and he'll sketch one out with great skill.</i> He'd done
his best to find it amusing. They'd shaken hands and exchanged best
wishes for the holidays, and after about thirty paces, Pavor had
stopped to look behind him to see Fitz stride along the farther
sidewalk in the other direction, his earflaps flapping like an
oversized bird trying to fly, an extinct bird, a dodo. As he lay upon
the chesterfield, the image carried his imagination back to his
childhood school visit to the Redpath Museum where he had found
himself spellbound by the stuffed dodo behind glass. Unlike the
nearby passenger pigeon, the dodo had a strange human-like quality.
How could they have killed such intriguing animals he had wondered?
And with that fleeting thought, Pavor fell into a light doze where
amazons, minotaurs and dodos would mingle in his dreams.<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 15px;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-87504556161429926822014-07-16T13:58:00.000-04:002014-07-18T22:13:59.195-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-Nine<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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A timeless luminescence
played off the bathroom tiles as the flames of the tea candles
shivered and flickered in their faceted glass holders. Amelia
remarked the translucent glow upon her exposed skin as she swept a
cloud of bath bubbles towards her breasts rising from the hot water
like tropical islands. Alacrity and Karma she could call them, those
odd words Duncan had spoken one night while in his liminal state.
Alacrity and Karma, twin tropical islands in the south seas of his
unconsciousness. She closed her eyes feeling the welcome flush of
warmth upon her cheeks, grateful for this moment of calm and
normality as the lavender-scented bathwater released her from layers
of psychological restraint, layers reaching back even to that nascent
aversion to the idea of giving birth, one that had passed through
various stages of denial, self-reproach, selfishness and acceptance.
It was fortuitous neither of them had wanted children. As she swirled
water around her hips, she imagined Duncan and his twin brother in
their Mother's womb, each in their own amniotic sac with their
umbilical cords making her think of astronauts floating in space, or
deep sea divers with oxygen hoses, or monkeys swinging on lianas
under the rain forest canopy. With the loss of his twin brother, and
his unlikely-to-be married younger brother, Duncan was forever going
on about being the last of the line, and she sensed he derived a
stubborn dignity in this preponderant closure, almost one of negative
pleasure. Perhaps that was why he'd wanted to visit his childhood
home that afternoon, before they'd even returned to theirs. They'd
driven past his old elementary school, now condominiums, and then
stopped at his old church across the corner from it, where they had
got out and walked around. The trees had overgrown concealing the
substantial presence of the large church. Duncan had recalled the
time when as a young teenager, he'd followed his Father, who was on
the church house committee, through a window and out to an attached
roof ladder and up to a small door to the massive square towered
belfry to inspect the excessive build-up of bat and pigeon droppings;
a dank and fetid smell had risen from the dark and slippery interior
where the bells had long ceased to ring. Many bags of guano had
been redeemed by a contractor hired to clean it up. So many memories
he'd said, so many. His parents had been the first to wed in the new
building's chapel, but now the structure was up for sale. When they'd
gotten home, he'd searched his files for an old magazine he'd
inherited from his parents, a copy of the <i>The Presbyterian Record</i>
from June of 1964 with a photograph of the church on the cover, a
flood of parishioners cascading down the main entrance to the
sidewalk, a photograph in which he was sure he could see his parents in the
crowd and he and his brothers hidden in the sea of suits, hats and
dresses. There were so few people now left to attend. “I wouldn't
be surprized if it was turned into condominiums,” he'd said, before
describing an imaginary series of rooms in the belfry tower with a
spiral staircase between them, rooms filled with books and antique
furniture, an impossible future Gothic fantasy of his desire. They
had then left the car at the church and walked down the street to
look at his childhood home, which was well-kept and in better
condition than he remembered. The school, the church and the home
were three points forming what he had said formed an isosceles right
triangle of childhood that could fit into a football field. The
growth of neighbourhood trees and the rise of a four-storey apartment
block on the corner across from the family home—on the empty lot of an old Esso gas station—blocked the
views of the sky from his old den windows. The slender Linden tree of
his childhood had grown to an absurd thickness for such a small front
lawn, it's breadth just defeating his encircling arms. It would
outlive him he'd said, his life was as ephemeral as the aphids that
used to live within its dappled expanse.
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
From her initial fears that
Duncan would awake without memory, as if he'd sipped water from a
mysterious river running through his dreams, she felt that his
strange sleep had had the obverse reaction, arousing his deepest
recollections and stirring up the silt of pale nostalgia. She had
experienced feelings of relief and thankfulness before finally
settling upon a sense of delicate uncertainty, retaining an unspoken
concern for a sudden relapse. Except for his novel propensity to
strip the prosaic and habitual of its banality, he seemed quite
normal. His having cleaned the fridge was perhaps a welcome
side-effect, but she hoped he would soon loose interest in the
mundane. Life was complicated enough without awakening the auto pilot
of daily life. As for the Norwegian outbursts, she was baffled, and
had given up trying to record them for later translation
possibilities. She hoped they would just stop. Seeing him standing
before his bookshelves casually reading a small paperback entitled
<i>The Spirit of Aikido, </i>after
dinner,<i> </i>she'd been
reassured that his old self was intact. Books were still his great
love, as language was for her.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A new assignment to
translate a popular young adult novel provided a structural
resilience to her life for the next quarter, allowing her to feel
confident in the approach of the holidays and the new year. She'd
already performed a quick read through of the text, one overladen
with adolescent love triangles, physical transformations and dark
forests. She would have to resist her temptation to embellish the
narrative with too rich a vocabulary, a propensity she noticed in
herself, and one she would monitor as she followed the line and the
voice of the adolescent narrator. If there had been such an abundance
of young adult books when she'd been young, she wondered if they
would have helped with her anxieties and doubts. As for own her
reading, she recalled going from Nancy Drew to <i>Catch 22</i>, a
book pinched from her Aunt's bookshelves. Then there had been the
shelves of Agatha Christies and Georgette Heyers, books by Margaret
Miller and Helen MacInnes, and the large selection of classics in her
uncle's collection. She wasn't sure if her reading choices had been a
symptom of her fleeing adolescence, or mere circumstance.</div>
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<br /></div>
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She drew the sponge up and
squeezed hot water behind her neck. Was this new assignment, she
wondered, due to her agent having pressed the emotional button? The
young translator whose husband was in a coma, his businesses in
limbo, their livelihood in jeopardy? A woman in need of the
proverbial helping hand? Pity? Concern? She slipped her chin down
into the water and blew soapy bubbles with her lips, the hypothetical
question transformed into opalescent structures moving upon the
surface of the water, an evanescence that slowly drifted towards her
distant toes.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Raising herself, the
shifting water echoing off the smooth white tile, she reached for a
towel and dried her hands and forearms, then took up the sheets of
paper resting on the toilet seat nearby, printed pages of Duncan's
recollection of his dreamscape while in his coma-like sleep. The day
after he'd awoken, he'd asked her to bring her laptop to the hospital
so he could describe the inner world before it faded from his memory.
She had watched him type with his fine, ten-finger skills—the most
practical course in high school he'd said, telling her all about his typing teacher, an older woman with her sleeveless dresses revealing the
slack upper arm flesh that wobbled when she pointed to a line of text
on the blackboard with her yardstick as the class pounded away on the late 1950s Royal Aristocrats seeking speed and accuracy, speed and
accuracy, the watchwords for their future lives. It had not taken him
long to type it out, but he had been briefly overcome with exhaustion
at the end, much to the concern of the nurses who had popped in to
take another battery of tests.
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
His description was but
another text to interpret and translate, she thought. One she hoped
would provide clues to understand his experience. She'd read his
halting sentences a dozen times wondering if he'd just made it up out
a mania of past emotions and memories, but she still found herself
drawn to them in the hope of finding meaning, significance, insight,
and perhaps a silhouette of some form of truth.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;">Dream Fragment</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;">It all began aboard a large sailing
vessel. I awoke in a small cabin with a porthole. I remember my
landfall, my disembarking. I found myself alone, descending a sloping
gangway to the dock, a young man ascending at equal pace, an
approaching simulacrum of my younger self. Without stopping, he
passed me a rusty skeleton key before vanishing in the fog and mist.
All of a sudden it was night. The narrow streets and dark alleys
running off from the quay were wet and slick. The occasional store
windows revealed empty display areas like theatrical stages between
performances. A full moon provided light. I found myself before a
tall brick and stone wall and began following the course of it in the
hopes of finding a door. Letters in an unknown script were
occasionally scratched into the rough stone. I came to a large upside
down Gothic arched door made of stout oak and decorated with richly
carved rosettes that upon closer inspection, revealed a diversity of
faces, Green Men with differing expressions. The point of the arch
lay near my feet, the keyhole in the middle, eye level, the open
mouth of one of the faces. I looked through but only the only thing
visible was darkness. I inserted the key sideways and turned it and
the tumblers silently, effortlessly aligned, and the the door opened
inwards of itself and I stepped carefully over the narrow point and
pocketed the key. A passageway ran to the left with a gradual
downward grade and as I began to walk, I ran my fingertips against
the dark walls feeling ridges like the wales of corduroy, or spines
of books, reminding me too of running a stick along
fences as a kid. Coming to large double doors without handles or
knobs, I pushed them open and found myself beneath a geodesic dome
structure, moonlight reflecting angular shadows, grids and triangles,
upon the pathway before me, one that led to fifteen foot high
bookshelves on either side, each with a rolling library ladder
attached to a smooth runner rail. I breathed in the intoxicating
alchemical aroma of paper, cloth and leather bindings feeling I'd
found a hidden paradise, a lost or forgotten library. I looked down
the path and noticed it came to an end, and thinking it odd, I walked
the long distance to that supposed dead end only to discover that it
opened to the left with a gradual curve which I continued to explore.
I had to overcome my desire to look at the books, their buckram,
leather and cloth bindings diverting my attention, their gilt titles
seducing me to withdraw a volume, breath in its particular scent,
feel its unique shape and texture, and behold the imagined title
pages of elaborate design. Only when I came to the end of the curve
which abruptly turned right and then back towards the direction I had
come, did I begin to recognize a familiar layout, one that Amelia and
I had walked with Melisande, a layout of a medieval labyrinth. I then
gave in to my desire to look at the books themselves and I scaled one
of the ladders and randomly pulled a book off a high shelf, a heavy
full leather binding with panelled boards and gilt tooling, one of a
multi-volume set with the title <i>Canticles of Sand</i>. I opened it
to see exquisite green and blue marbled endpapers and fore edges; it
was a finely printed book with engravings of strange coastal
landscapes. Putting it back in place, I glanced at the titles around
me and many were in foreign languages. Deciding to explore the
pathway, I descended the ladder and continued along the path,
occasionally stopping to look at a book that caught my eye—the
books only had titles, neither author names nor publisher's imprint
at the foot of the spine. I vividly remember these titles: <i>Perpetual
Conceptions</i>, <i>Gelid Harmonies</i>, and <i>Specular Apothegms</i>.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;">It was about then that I heard the
footsteps. At first I was unsure from which direction they came, and
remembering Melisande's explanation of labyrinths having but one
entrance and one path, I realised that if the footsteps were
following me into the labyrinth, I could not escape them. They would
find me along the way or at the centre. The bookshelves were back to
back and didn't have spaces between. The only possible hiding place
would be to scale a ladder and somehow manage to clamber on top of
the highest shelf, their tops forming what I imagined would be a
mirrored pathway of the one below, an additional pathway with the
hazard of vertigo. To slip and fall would not
be inconsiderable. All of these thoughts passed through my mind as I
listened to the footsteps echoing in the passage, and still I
couldn't decipher from which direction they issued. I remember trying
to lower my breathing rate and stay calm, but even though I possessed
the key, I felt I was trespassing. With my senses heightened due to
fear, I listened to the footsteps which were firm, even and
resounded with a frightening persistence. I made the decision to walk
towards the centre, and I began as quickly and quietly as possible.
The footsteps increased in their speed. I began to lightly run, and
likewise, my pursuer, who I sensed was a man, began sprinting. From
that point I remember starting to run wildly, bouncing off the edges
of bookshelves as I turned corners, the occasional book falling to
the path. It then occurred to me to pull books off the shelves to
hinder him, but my love for books got the better of me, and I
reasoned it would take the same amount of time to dislodge them than
I would gain in frustrating his pursuit. It didn't matter in the end,
for as I came round a large bend which I conjectured to be at the top
of the labyrinth, the path was blocked with four foot stacks of
books. I climbed one of the ladders and seeing it was free from
obstacle, I positioned myself near the top and began pushing myself
along the rail with my right arm and my right foot. After careening
around large curves and long straight sections, I had to occasionally
stop at the sharp turns to transfer to another ladder. I heard him
behind, travelling the other side, the sound of metal on metal, the
rubber wheels squealing along the floor, his vigorous and aggressive
physical exertions knocking books off as he went.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;">When I felt I was gaining on him, my
ladder shuddered to a stop almost throwing me off, but I held on with
one hand and pulled myself back. The wheels had broken. Looking
forward in the dim light, I couldn't see any other ladders, so I
climbed up and reached for the top of the bookshelf unit and hoisted
myself up. I tried to dislodge the ladder but failed. Kneeling,
feeling slightly dizzy, I glanced back and I could see a hooded
figure in dark clothes, his pale hands gripping the ladder as he
pushed off with one foot. Standing up, I looked across the expanse of
the labyrinth and found I was not too far from the centre, but if I
followed the path, it would take me back in the direction of my
pursuer, so I contemplated vaulting the path below to the tops of far
bookshelves across from me. It was then I felt the impact of a heavy
book on my shoulder thrown by my nemesis from below. He then began
scaling the ladder and I picked up the book at my feet, and unable to
overcome my curiosity I quickly read the title that almost did me in,
<i>Cordis Divisio</i>, then I threw it down at him, hitting his back
and stalling him momentarily. I ran along the tops of the
bookshelves and could hear him following. Books skidded by me, one
hit my arm, another almost hit my head. I could see that I was
approaching the middle of a semi-circular arc with a straight line
running towards the centre of the labyrinth, and I made my way
carefully there only to find it broke to either side in short
dead-ends arcs, and across from me, the circular outline of the
centre. Looking back, I saw he was slowly coming towards me,
still holding a book in his left hand. I ran back to the beginning of
the straight path, turned around again, and ran quickly as I could and made the leap across the pathway below.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;">I made it across, but overshot the leap
and found myself slipping over the inner edge. I was clinging to the
top of the bookshelf unit, trying to find a foot hold, when I heard
him land above me. Looking down I could see a large, sharply pointed
sun dial on a stone pedestal. I then looked up, and the man was
holding a pale hand out to me, and with the other, he began to pull
back the hood on his jacket, but before I saw his face, I lost my
grip and fell towards the sundial.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #741b47;">I then awoke and found myself in the
small room aboard the ship once more. And the whole sequence started
over, and over, and over. I was caught in this nightmare loop until I
awoke in the hospital and not in the ship's cabin, the machines
around me beeping, the nurses hovering over me, and Amelia behind
them with a look of deep anxiety upon her face.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Amelia shivered, put the pages back on
the toilet seat, turned the hot water tap on, slipped down into the bath, and contemplated if, and when, she would tell Duncan he'd
been calling Gavin's name before awakening in the hospital. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-53995557785362346972014-07-05T17:30:00.000-04:002014-07-05T17:30:45.793-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-Eight<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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For Duncan Strand, the world was
becoming an endeavour of renewed recognitions.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Having finished his breathing
exercises, he lay on his back, his calves resting upon the
upholstered living room chair like an astronaut ready for takeoff, his head upon a pillow, rocking gently to the repetition of four
songs on his old Walkman CD player positioned upon his chest, songs
by the Psychedelic Furs: <i>In My Head, Heaven, The Ghost in You,</i>
and <i>When She Comes</i>, his right index finger rested on the skip
button, his left arm spread out towards Hugh, who, with his large,
brown limpid eyes, lay beside him, chin on his outstretched front
legs, looking at him with a greater sense of affiliation and
affection as they shared the soft carpet pile and a similar
perspective, enjoying the occasional tummy rub as he sniffed the
essential odours of Duncan mixed with the fusty nuances embedded in
the carpet around them.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Duncan had forgotten how much time he'd
spent on floors as a child, under tables, behind Chesterfields, on
stairs, under them, and beneath the covers, the early environments of
childhood imagination. Looking through the open passage to the next
room, he gazed upon the dining room table he'd inherited from his
parents, a heavy, dark Chippendale inspired number with a footrest
between the legs, one he used to sit upon pretending it was his
submarine, or lie supine like a vampire in his coffin, and how he'd
get yelled at by his Father for doing so. The cracks were still
there, the repairs weakened with age. The table was fraught with
memories of tension-filled suppers: the solemn graces, the baptism
with spilt milk, the daily incarnations of the potato, and his
recalcitrance before the salmon cake. But also the joys of birthdays
with their 1960s Woolworth Department store pastel confections with
their inevitably dried-out red roses and candied silver ball-bearings
he'd leave behind on his plate, and of course the shaky inscriptions
in occasionally misspelled or abbreviated names—accepted with a
reduction in price; the holidays too, with their turkeys—legs in
the air like him now—and the hams with their Argus-eyed pineapple
slices pinned in place with sharp edged cloves like miniature
tomahawks, and those seemingly endless games of Monopoly, Gin Rummy,
or Crazy Eights. An embarrassing memory came back to him. He must
have seven or eight, eager to relate the details of what he'd learnt
at school that day, an exploration of the inner ear, and how he had
used the word 'Fallopian' in place of 'Eustachian' tube and watched
his parents mysteriously turn to stone, only their eyes shifting to
each other in a paroxysm of shock. Nothing had been said. The
silence, like an exhalation, had dwindled in the renewed clatter of
forks and knives, and no doubt a change of subject. Only later did
his brother tell him of his mistake. How had he known of it at that
age he wondered? Or had he? Had it been in the Junior Encyclopedia
Britannica, the one his brother had written on the bottom edges of
volume seven, '100% Junk' in what must have seemed, at the time, an
epic act of defiance? He couldn't remember. His youth felt
over-weighted with innocence and ignorance, the latter a great
regret—how he wished he'd been one of those precocious geniuses
found in books—but the former, a characteristic he cherished
like the lost stone with the perfectly round hole he'd stubbed his
toe against at the water's edge on Cavendish Beach in Prince Edward
Island, an innocence best exemplified by his youthful spinning round
and round on a summer's day until the light-headed dizziness warped
him out of orbit and he fell to the grass trying to hold the azure
sky and fair-weather clouds from being sucked into the vortex of his
self-induced wonder, lying there overcome by the mystery of distant
galaxies and endless space, a feeling of organic oneness with the
spinning earth beneath him, and the numinous above.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pinned by gravity, he lay upon the
carpet in this most comforting of postures as the memories of
childhood faded. Breathing deeply, he pressed the pause button and he imagined the CD's rpms descending to zero. His collapse in the
bookshop, he thought, was strangely similar to that childhood
pastime, the world spinning round, his head at once weightless and
heavy as granite. Perhaps it had been a result of all those adult
years of not spinning round and round, all those years of
non-attentiveness to . . . innocence? No, he wouldn't go there.
Amelia would think he was going down the path her parents had
followed to everyone's eventual dismay. Yes, he must keep on the
rational side, the “A” side of interpretation, even though his
random, and apparently mundane, utterances in Norwegian were a
mystery to him. He agreed with her Uncle Edward: leave it be, let it
settle, get on with life. What were they but syllables and sounds?
Nothing to worry about. He was no stranger to the quirks of language.
Only last month he remembered ordering a pear tart from a fine French
pastry shop and had used the words 'tarte de poivre,' in place of 'tarte
de poire.' What was an extra 'v' but an accidental amusement between
the clerk and himself? He was always fumbling with words. He wondered
now if it was an inherited trait. His Mother, who had no real French,
having been born in Notre Dame-de-Grace in the late 1920s, and had
never studied the language like many of her generation, had still
been willing to try with her simple salutations and her 'comme ci,
comme ça.' and had even tried to converse with the non-English
speaking wife of his Father's business associate who he'd invited to
dinner one evening, a dinner where his Mother had related how she'd been out in the rain that day with her new umbrella and had used
the word 'pamplamoose,' in place of 'parapluie.' Duncan smiled to
himself. Yes, he was a chip off the old block.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As well as this verbal side-effect, he
felt his recent medical ordeal and symbolic rebirth had enabled him
to shed a hardened skin of habit, an integument of reason, allowing
him to regain an enlivened perspective on life, and with fresh eyes,
observe the world around him. He'd already become fascinated with the
mundane, the overlooked, the absurd, like the five jars of
semi-finished pimento stuffed olives that had migrated to the back of
the fridge looking much like a mad scientist's collection of
extraterrestrial eyes in briny formaldehyde, or the button plackets
on all his shirts with their horizontal button holes that framed the
vertical ones—like a birth and a death—a detail he'd been
unconscious of after five decades of his own fashioning. Not an hour
ago he'd found himself re-buttoning them all as they hung in
haphazard attention upon their plastic hangers, less in the desire
for order than in a renewed fascination with the clever device and
the urge to keep the shirts as human-like as possible. The crisp
shirt collars had also stimulated the now distant memory of attending the
Knox Crescent and Kensington Presbyterian Sunday services as a child: he and his
brothers dressed in their white shirts and bow ties sitting on the
little benches in front of the first pew, fidgeting and squirming
while their cherubic minister, like an actor on a thrust stage, stood
at the centre of the altar steps and extemporized on his homily of
the week, a simplified story for them, his hands gesticulating
expressively before returning to each other and gently clasped upon
his stomach. And then the Sunday school volunteer would lead them
away along the red carpet to the side door to the sounds of the
muted organ and a soft hymn, leaving the adults like those forsaken to deal with a sinking ship. A backwards sequence of recollections had been triggered and his Saturday morning excursions with his parents to
the old Atwater Market in search of the rump roast for Sunday dinner
were brought back to him. The butcher's stalls with their cold room windows revealing the carcasses, half carcasses, the
oxidized blood mimicking slabs of marble; the pig carcasses yellow
and orange with various triangular and circular marks like passport
stamps; pig, beef, lamb, veal, ageing in the dim light; he could
almost smell the sawdust upon the floor behind the cutting
tables where the mustacheoed butchers in their white shirts, hats and
pink-stained coats conversed in French, content in their profession,
content in their skin. Notwithstanding the horrors of factory
farming—if they had existed as such in the 1960s—at least he'd
known where his meat had come from, and had given thanks before
meals, though to his mind it should have been given first to the poor
animals, and second, to his Mother for preparing the meal, but such
truths had been overlooked for the greater truth, whatever that might
have been. The circularity of the weekend ritual of seeking out the roast beef and its final consumption had been a subservient shadow to that great abstraction. And now he was meatless, having followed Amelia into vegetarianism for what seemed
forever. Only the memory of a succulent smoked meat sandwich made him feel at all nostalgic for his meat and potato origins.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He shifted his eyes to the corner of
the room where the lamp light reflected back from the ceiling in two
soft arcs like female breasts and he thought of Amelia taking her
bath, no doubt trying to soothe her worries over his health and her
concerns over whether he'd wake from his first night's sleep at home.
Dr. Yee had assured them he would be fine, the tests having failed to uncover any hidden dangers. She'd been confident in his recovery
through the use of medication and exercises. There was something about Dr. Yee that reminded him of Yiyin however. Cheekbones? Lips? Eyes? He'd been tempted to inquire if they were related, but a sense of
formal restraint had held him back. Perhaps another time. Perhaps
with a followup appointment in the future, if it felt appropriate,
the atmosphere relaxed, the timing right.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
He removed his earbuds and put the CD
player aside. Hugh, now stretched out, was dreaming, his little legs
doing the dog paddle. Perhaps he was running
alongside the shy Greyhound from down the street, the one who
shivered in winter not wanting to go further than the corner and back
with his owner. Or maybe Hugh was dreaming <i>he was</i> the
Greyhound with its svelte figure and long slender legs, galloping
like a horse across a field of dandelions in bloom. He closed his
eyes and breathed deeply feeling that if he didn't have a residual
fear of sleep, he did retain a fear of revisiting a certain dreamscape, one he felt he'd lived within for the three days he'd been 'away'
as Amelia had referred to his anomalous coma, his brief vacation from
reality. He too had been running. But away from a shadowed pursuer.<br />
<br />
© Ralph Patrick Mackay<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-38546764366345200222014-06-24T15:45:00.001-04:002014-06-24T16:00:10.427-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy Seven<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw_NV2MY8Zelr-As8TmZ_lpSAxAvGeV8e0wvRye3sCsspvWZ2hNPKlRFqVhauAA9eeRuit4uP1pO-PHp0ISPBylGrE_Zh8GF3cUeskZ-4YIah9cGreMZ6iC7QoBTr9v56aHwf1Qg/s1600/card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw_NV2MY8Zelr-As8TmZ_lpSAxAvGeV8e0wvRye3sCsspvWZ2hNPKlRFqVhauAA9eeRuit4uP1pO-PHp0ISPBylGrE_Zh8GF3cUeskZ-4YIah9cGreMZ6iC7QoBTr9v56aHwf1Qg/s1600/card.jpg" height="200" width="148" /></a>It hadn't been funny at the time, she
thought, as the laughter of co-workers and friends encircled her
like the plaiting of a holiday wreath. She must tell the story again
they insisted, so-and-so hadn't heard it yet. So-and-so was new. New
to Sophie's Christmas party for librarians, an annual event which had
been held in her flat on Esplanade Avenue for the last eight years,
and at which Melisande had first related the story with great
dramatic energy, and a panache that had surprised, and later
embarrassed her, due to the absurdity of it, and the underscoring of
cathartic joy at having left the environment in which it had
occurred, a story which now, in its eighth holiday incarnation, had
withered somewhat, at least to her, before the bureaucratic
expectations of saint-hood when it came to dealing with library
patrons. She sipped her wine, smiling at the laughing faces around
her as she remembered the actual day, when, on her first job at a
downtown public library, one frequented a great deal by the homeless,
the drug addicts, the mentally ill, the eccentrics, the local
characters, and those with time and nothing else on their hands,
she'd been called to the circulation desk from the office and told
that there was a disturbance in the reading room. It had been a
Saturday. She'd been in charge. The circulation staffer had pointed
out the individuals involved and had whispered to her that the young
man had complained that the person facing him across the table had
been looking at him and giggling. The individual in question, a
youngish woman with her head wrapped in tin foil, was sitting very
low on her chair, her arms on the table, her head resting on the back
of the high wood chair. Melisande had conjured up a sentence she
hoped would be sufficient to ease the situation: “I'm sorry Miss,
if you could refrain from laughing, you're disturbing the other
patrons.” She had approached the table, the two patrons looking up
at her, the young man with relief, the young woman with uncertainty,
and she had said, “I'm sorry Miss, if you could refrain from
laughing, you're disturbing the other <i>patients</i>.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It hadn't been funny at the time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The young woman had looked up at her, a
smile breaking upon her face like the reflections of florescent light
upon her aluminium foil, and, having caught the Freudian slip, had
begun to laugh quietly which had made the young man indignant. In
that moment of embarrassment, having reduced everyone to a patient of
a psychiatric ward, she'd managed to look around the reading room at
all the faces turned her way, many haggard and weary, beaten down by
life and circumstances, their bodies frozen in the act of reading
papers, magazines, books, a nightmarish vision of reverse judgement,
and not knowing what else to say, she'd turned around and made her
way back to the office, made a pot of tea to sooth her nerves, and
thought a job in a private or university library would suit her
better, feeling that her undergraduate degree in religious studies
and her graduate degree in library science had not prepared her for
dealing with such encounters.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It hadn't been that funny at the
time,” Melisande said over the thinning laughter around her,
feeling that every ounce of amusement would be accounted for in some
grand Karmic register and <i>there would be hell to pay</i> as her
Father used to say.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Patients,” Sophie said, tapping
the new girl's arm with her hand, “It's still funny after all these
years Melisande. What a wonderful transposition of words.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“In the library I'm working at,”
the new girl said, “we've been instructed to call library users,
'customers.' They think library user, patron, and client are
outmoded. Customers. Sometimes I think I'm working in retail.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The sound of Randy Travis's rich voice
singing <i>Meet Me Under the Mistletoe</i> overlay the awkward
silence that settled upon the party goers as they struggled to
respond to this rather mundane remark.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jonathan, a subject specialist at the
university, came to the rescue: “At least that'll keep the word
patient out of the equation.” A wink to Melisande. “Here's to
customer,” he said, raising his glass, “may the Walmart greeting
be soon to follow.” Having saved the party from a minor denouement,
everyone raised their glass, and after they drank, a scattering of
ideas for conversation, like the multiple trajectories of a fireworks
explosion, spread through the room, their voices reduced to more
intimate levels,
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“So Jonathan, how's Frank doing these
days?” Melisande asked, trying not to stare at his expensive
mock-tortoiseshell—at least she assumed them to be mock
turtle—glass frames.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well my dear, he's working away on a
new book, provisionally entitled <i>The Rake's Profit, or Tally Hoe:
John Cleland and his Publishers.</i> He's up to his earlobes in
research. Just last night he was regaling me with details of one of
Cleland's bookseller publishers and his stint in the pillory for
publishing <i>Fanny Hill</i>.” Jonathan rolled his eyes.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I guess <i>Fanny Hill </i>seems
pretty tame compared to reading material these days. I overheard a
woman at a bookshop tell a friend that she'd been reading one of
those <i>Fifty Shades</i> books and how she had laughed her way
through it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“God knows where all those millions
of copies will end up. Elderly pensioners burning them in their
fireplaces for warmth perhaps. <i>Throw on another Fifty Shades
Darker, my dear</i>,” he said imitating an elderly voice, “<i>I
feel the draft on my back like the frigid breath of Dr. Freeze .</i>”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“So, when do we get the wedding
invitations Melisande?” Sophia asked from across the living
room.”We're all looking forward to the day.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Trying to appear her regular organized
self, not wanting to let on that she and Pavor had yet to choose from
the examples available, with their plethora of fonts, shapes, sizes,
colours, embossing, ribbons, lace, textures, and photograph options. Pavor had
offered to write a short short story to include with the invitation
as well. A keepsake. “January, the month of Janus, the doorway to
the new year, looking back, looking forward” she said, not wanting
to commit to a specific day, “it will be a simple wedding.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sophie raised her glass, “Here's to
Melisande and Pavor, may their wedding day be blessed with good
friends and good weather.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jonathan gave her a squeeze with his
left arm and whispered in her ear, “So, since it was a leap year,
did you propose to Pavor or did he finally man up?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande slapped his thigh and gave
him a playful nudge with her shoulder. “On bended knee between the
pews of the McGill Chapel no less.” As the memory came back to her,
she recalled the dual nature of the proposal, the confession before
the request, the past before the future, the revelation of a
predeceased wife and child, and how their ghosts had thrown a shroud
over the proposal, one she hadn't noticed at first, but later had felt settle round her like a gloaming mist upon a farmer's field.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-33663700536199602392014-06-16T16:05:00.001-04:002014-06-18T21:49:10.108-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-Six<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyczm_norDkBDAiyJBFw-wFesmwpPLjZjchHB7MjjuGS0zV5_dcjgDiljcf8hpTtaQC4f9rlejFZg4lpsHflfPKWVf4AE5sITJrFYb8NN8GF0eXpbW-3hLkJXfHnfCycaJeLsbSQ/s1600/bkplate1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyczm_norDkBDAiyJBFw-wFesmwpPLjZjchHB7MjjuGS0zV5_dcjgDiljcf8hpTtaQC4f9rlejFZg4lpsHflfPKWVf4AE5sITJrFYb8NN8GF0eXpbW-3hLkJXfHnfCycaJeLsbSQ/s1600/bkplate1.jpg" height="142" width="200" /></a>The scent of old books greeted Edward
Seymour as he entered his study, the gilt stamped titles and the
varicoloured bindings speaking volumes to him of distant pathways
taken, memories, and relationships. At ninety-two, he knew they were
unlikely to be revisited with anything but nostalgia. He went to the
shelves where he kept books inscribed to him by old friends and
associates, and breathed deeply as he gazed upon them. Wilder
Penfield's novel <i>The Torch</i>, stood with his <i>The Mystery of
the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain</i>,
and his <i>No Man Alone: A Surgeon's Life</i>; beside them, books by
Karl Stern, his <i>Pillar of Fire</i>, his <i>The Third Revolution: A
Study of Psychiatry and Religion,</i> his <i>The Flight from Woman</i>,
and his novel <i>Through Dooms of Love.</i> Edward recalled the year
of 1960 when both Penfield and Stern had come out with a novel and many had wondered who would be next. Even he had contemplated
writing one, and having produced twenty pages, had but it aside. It
must be in one of his old files he thought. He reached out a wrinkled
slender finger towards Stern's <i>The Flight from Woman</i>, an
interesting study of its time, and with his striated fingernail like
old ivory, pulled it out and put it on his desk to hazard a glimpse
of the past. Then, seeing <i>Rainer Maria Rilke</i> by Willem Graff,
he pulled it off too, and opened it to to see Willem's inscription to
him. He fanned the pages and a paper fell out and slipped down to the
carpet like a glider making a perfect landing upon an Aubusson field.
Carefully, he bent down to retrieve it and went to sit at his desk. A
letter size sheet, folded in half revealed two poems, typed, one from
each end as if mirrored, and when folded, resting upon each other in
an intimate alphabetical embrace. He remembered. the attractive
woman, a former patient, who had transferred her affections to him in
the mid-1970s. She'd fallen for Rilke, and then for him. Or had it
been the other way round? She'd left him with these poems after he'd
discussed the issues with her and made her cognisant of the
transference, as well as the boundaries of propriety and professional
duty. The temptation now seemed less significant, but it was tinged
with longing like the fragrance of musk. The paper itself was like a
desiccated leaf preserved as an emblem of a path not taken.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>C'est le paysage
longtemps . . .</b></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
C'est le paysage
longtemps, c'est une cloche,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
c'est du soir la
délivrance si pure;</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
mais tout cela en nous
prépare l'approche</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
d'une nouvelle, d'une
tendre figure . . .</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ainsi nous vivons dan un
embarras très étrange</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
entre l'arc lointain et la
trop pénétrante flèche:</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
entre le monde trop vague
pour saisir l'ange</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
et Celle qui, par trop de
présence, l'empêche.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Dans la multiple
rencontre</b></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dans la mutiple rencontre</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
faisons à tout sa part,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
afin que l'ordre se montre</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
parmi les propos du
hasard.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tout autour veut qu'on
l'écoute,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
écoutons jusqu'au bout;</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
car le verger et la route</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
c'est toujours nous!</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The poems didn't arouse in
him a dormant longing for youth, but did arouse the feeling that
poems were embedded in timelessness, waiting silently for the next
passerby to grab hold and briefly experience a sense of eternity. She
had been a doctor of internal medicine which had made him think of
poets being the doctors of <i>eternal </i>medicine. She had laughed
at his play on words. He folded the paper and put it back in its old
resting place almost hearing the echo of her laughter. He opened his
desk drawer and withdrew his journal and began to write:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Wednesday December 19,
2012 - 7 p. m.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>It has been many days
since I've written this journal. Preparations for the holidays,
doctor's appointments, fatigue and forgetfulness have all played
their part. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>A mild day, a light
drizzle, and now, a light snow is falling. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Received two Christmas
cards this morning. One rather special. It is lonely at the top of
the age chain.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Nostalgia overcame me this evening. I dipped into old books. In one, I came across a slip of paper
given to me by an old patient of mine, a woman who had transferred
her affections to me, the classic therapist dilemma. It's good to
know she worked through her issues and led a happier life. I wonder
if she is still with us? She was very beautiful I recall. Having
dealt with the fallout of such temptations over the years in treating
a diversity of patients suffering at one of the three points of the
classic love triangle, perhaps I'd been conditioned to resist such
extreme emotions. So many affairs had ended in broken families and
ultimately, loneliness. Very few had been successful diversions.
Thankfully I resisted the temptation. Happily married to my dear
wife, my friend, my equal, I had been fortunate. The latent affairs
of the heart had stayed within my imagination. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Another Christmas will
soon be upon us. Every year I think it might well be my last,
although young doctor Bergeron thinks I'm 'bien fort.' I feel like a
man in an hour glass, or a life-glass perhaps, standing on a small
mound of remnant sand, a mountain beneath me in the other sphere. If
only I could push on the sides of the glass, pound my fist upon the
surface, rock the glass back and forth until it fell sideways to form
a symbolic sign of infinity, and I could sweep the remaining sand
into the concave feature of the glass and lie down and rest, cupped
in eternity. I wonder why it is that some individuals when they reach
a great age, catch a second wind and become avid for life? More to
lose perhaps. Looking back, there seems to be a life hurdle that
takes so many in their fifties and sixties due to lifestyle or
genetics, but if they pass through, or over, that barrier, those last
laps can be richly fulfilling. They have been for me, though a sense
of guilt surrounds my willpower like the piping on my dressing gown. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Amelia and Duncan are
doing well. She keeps me informed every other day as to Duncan's
well-being. It has now been ten days since he emerged from his three
day coma. He is functioning very well, his memory is solid, and what
physical effects he sustained, he has overcome with minor therapy.
The doctors are still uncertain exactly what caused his fall. A close
call with an aneurysm like an asteroid passing through the Earth's
atmosphere and burning up perhaps. The only oddity of his three day
coma seems to be strange and random expressions in Norwegian, a
language he did not know previously. A mystery. He seems to
understand what the expressions mean, but he is unable to control
their capricious and seemingly unconscious eruptions. Naturally,
specialists and postdocs have been interested in his case. I have
advised him to avoid researchers. Let it work itself out I told them.
</i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>This has me somewhat
worried. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>This special case of
Duncan, along with today's card from Isabelle Cloutier, have
convinced me to tell Amelia the truth about her Mother and Father.
If I should falter, hesitate, or pass away before I can tell her, I
will write it here, in brief, in the hopes she may some day read my
journals which I will bequeath to her: </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>My youthful half-sister
Catherine, the progeny of my wayward Father and a young secretary,
was sent to Canada before my arrival. Suffering from depression, she
found herself ushered into the care of Donald Ewen Cameron where she
was exposed to his experiments with Electroshock and drug therapy,
leading to her later spiral of dysfunction. What an unfortunate place
to have met a husband, but meet Richard, Amelia's father she did,
another patient of that misled research. When I arrived to teach at
McGill, Catherine and Richard had already found a hippie haven in the
Hare Krishna movement. Though I tried to help, they'd distanced
themselves from us. Amelia was young when they left that group and
changed religions once more, following a Yogi off to California and
we secured legal custody of their children. I never broached the
subject of Cameron's experiments upon them with Amelia. I had thought
it best to avoid creating a need to stir up the truth. The players
involved were too powerful. The whole unfortunate affair had been
sealed away, an episode from the cold war no one wanted to revisit.
The truth revealed in these cases is as rare as elephant eggs in a
rhubarb tree.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>It has been decades since
I've written in my journal about Catherine and those difficult years.
Guilt? Catharsis? If you are reading these words Amelia, please
forgive an old man his sins.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>As to Isabelle's letter
within her Christmas card—un hibou comme d'habitude—she informed
me that she had received a cryptic letter signed with the initials of
what must be Thérèse Laflamme, with the names of David Ashemore, an
arrow pointing to the name Jarvis Whitehorne, and the acronym,
P.R.I.S.M. It seems Amelia must have heard me discuss Isabelle's
name or I absentmindedly mentioned it in passing. Isabelle researched
Jarvis A. Whitehorne and discovered a rogue researcher in the
footsteps of Cameron. This man seems to have his own research
company, Whitehorne & Associates. The acronym seems to stand for
Peremptory Remote Intra-Sensory Manipulation. No longer is it
necessary to have a patient in a room to experiment upon according to
Isabelle, now they can insert devices and activate them remotely, or,
by the use of acoustic devices, disrupt sleep patterns and manipulate the body's chemistry from afar. It all seems so far-fetched but Isabelle assures me such experiments are taking place. It is a great abuse of science and
technology. The rational male mind has objectified the other and is
able, without conscience, to break their very spirit. Isabelle sees
the abuse of such types of scientific and technological advances as a greater threat in the future to individual freedoms than concerns over big brother
listening to their phone calls, or is it reading their emails now?
The rational male mind and the objectification of the other will
always be the source of great evil. Isabelle suggests that David
Ashemore had come across the activities of Whitehorne and had begun to
write reports about them, only to find himself, she thinks, a target.
She fears that Ashemore was told to desist in his investigations, but
continued. Much conjecture on her part she admits.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>A sense of dread overcomes me as I think of such abuse. I will tell Arthur all
about Isabelle's discovery on Saturday over our chess game. I
just realised we won't be playing chess till the New Year. Well, it
will keep. Best not disturb his holidays anyway.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I shall wait till after
Christmas to tell Amelia about her parents. She has too much on her
plate right now with Duncan's still delicate health, and the closing
of his business. Good news is that Duncan has a buyer for most of his
stock, and some of the funds will be put towards a new car and a trip
to England. I would not mind seeing England once more, but for the
travelling. And I'm sure a third wheel would be unwelcome. They
never did take a decent honeymoon. I shall add to their financial
purse and also provide them with addresses of our living relatives on
that distant island.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Edward
drew a line beneath the last sentence and taking up Isabelle's
letter, pasted it down upon the facing page, then closed his journal
and returned it to his drawer. Walking over to the window, he looked
out upon the limbs of the naked trees with their layer of light snow
like Gothic tracery. Here he was, with the night birds and cobwebs,
the city glittering below like distant stars. He closed the curtains
and his eyes alighted upon the framed piece of paper hanging between
the bookshelves and the drapery. He had discovered it in a strange
book published in 1918, a book explaining the details of the gas mask
created by a research group under B.F. Goodrich, a book with haunting
images of a soldier modelling the mask, and looking like an undersea
monster. Images enough to haunt a child's dreams he thought. One of
the authors was a certain Major R. G. Pearce, who he learnt through
the head librarian at McGill, had been a medical doctor in Ohio, and
a sometime poet. The piece of paper was Pearce's poem entitled
<i>Entropy</i>. Edward never felt closer to the words:
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>When the night raven
finds our hearth and fans</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The dying embers with
his wings, and space</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Which time has warped
into our frames expands</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>In unstrained rest,
there will remain no trace</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Of us on earth, but in
the firmament</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Perhaps a Protean cloud
will hold my form</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>And it will catch the
light your star has sent.</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>When like my song your
molten heart was warm.</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Since crumpling power
shares not in our estate</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Contented we should lie
in dreamless sleep;</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>And hurried time will
never confiscate</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The tryst which mutual
souls have sought to keep.</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Our elsewhere and our
here will then be one</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Beyond the reaches of
the cyclic sun.</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>L'envoi</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>If this would be, our
lives may not be vain</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>For smiles might ripple
over space again.</i></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
head librarian had given him a short lecture on the prevalence of
poets who had trained as doctors, offering a long list of names, some
well-known, others obscure. Such individuals were able to maintain a
balance of science on the one hand, and the intuition of poetry on
the other. It gave Edward hope, acted as a soothing balm for his
sense of dread. From the door, he looked back and scanned his
bookshelves for an instant, then, turning the light out, carried the
books by Stern and Graff to the living room to spend an hour or two
with his hands in the past.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© Ralph Patrick Mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-90390172175932538132014-06-05T14:19:00.001-04:002014-06-05T14:46:06.155-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-five<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpSrXq_3_A2x0PIzghPdWzUEApMKNkuBb7Fv_mnLQvN9IYxhBsh0IXPrplDk3i99VsJAZecyi0kE84qqtn2HNmH7epgpJj3iGZ0ZJIk73FP1c2qSsia_jjg08YMZWPU7K9PjGng/s1600/chessmen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpSrXq_3_A2x0PIzghPdWzUEApMKNkuBb7Fv_mnLQvN9IYxhBsh0IXPrplDk3i99VsJAZecyi0kE84qqtn2HNmH7epgpJj3iGZ0ZJIk73FP1c2qSsia_jjg08YMZWPU7K9PjGng/s1600/chessmen.jpg" height="175" width="200" /></a>With the visibly evanescent fingers of
frost on the windshield leading the way, Pavor drove along Sherbrooke
Street enveloped by the aroma of fresh baked bagels while the words
of the eccentric Fitz resurfaced in his thoughts like pieces of
academic flotsam. He certainly lacked inhibition, he thought. A
coffin fly no less! There was something about Fitz, something
dispassionately erudite that irritatingly lingered like the itch of a
mosquito bite. Perhaps he was a new professor at one of the
Universities. As this thought settled like a well-placed puzzle
piece, he recognized Amelia driving towards him, her face bathed in a
shard of angled sun created by the tall buildings. He waved but she
didn't see him for the light in her eyes. Probably on her morning
errands, he thought, much like himself, a translator and a novelist
out and about while their respective partners, a bookseller and a
librarian, kept the books. A fanciful notion passed over him: perhaps
in another dimension their relationships were inverted, Melisande and
Duncan the symbolic bridge partners to Amelia and himself. Two
bibliophiles and two wordsmiths, the cataloguers and the scribblers.
The notion faded quickly as he considered how little he knew of
Amelia's character and personality. She was much like an artist's
picture to him, lightly sketched and enigmatic, but disturbingly more
real than his late wife and child who now seemed to have faded into a
haze of natural evocations, manifestations of seasonal intimacies; unwonted, diurnal creations of his imagination. In bed at night,
looking out at the framed darkness, he often wondered if they had
existed at all.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He would have to deal with the storage
locker with their archived belongings. It was time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Approaching his apartment building, he
noticed the street parking was a clean sweep, the other residents
also having sought distant landfalls: Saturday morning breakfast diners,
glistening powder on the Laurentian ski slopes, or shopping malls
with their echoing fountains and endless sales. Or were the drivers
all one night stands slinking off to their private worlds? He pulled
into his old spot and noticed the space in front of him had a
circular oil stain on the asphalt which resembled one of those
coloured NASA images he'd seen on the Internet, a supernova, or some
kind of gas emanation, captured instants of the past, like colourful
paintings on black felt, interstellar art. As he walked towards his
apartment, however, he realised that the position of the stained
pavement was indeed from his last departure. The possibility of a
leak took the sheen off his morning, the fresh air dulled to hints of
exhaust.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading"></a>Amelia
released her foot from the gas pedal and coasted along Sherbrooke
Street towards the red light in the distance, passing between the
towering modernist <span lang="en">Le Port-Royal Apartments </span>on
her left, and the human scale span of the late-nineteenth century row
houses on her right, buildings clad in grey limestone with rusticated
front entrances, oriel windows, gables and attics updated with
modern, dark jade green awnings dusted with snow, buildings long ago
transformed into upscale art galleries and boutiques. As she came to
a stop at the corner of Bishop, she thought of all the translation
work she'd performed, all the local writers she'd been reading, both
in English and French, writers who were creating their own version of
the city, laying claims like stake holders in a gold rush, and an
overwhelming impression of a tiresome tug of war overcame her. A city
with contentions lay all around her camouflaged by the calm effects
of habit. Perhaps she should have been reading and translating the
text of the city itself. She felt a wave of exhaustion overcome her
as she thought of all the local books and authors being pushed and
marketed by publishers and the media like the latest in fashion
trends. She massaged her neck. She must be burnt out. The stress of
Duncan's condition and their uncertain future had stripped her of her
resiliency. Pessimism and defeat had seeped in. Taking a deep breath
she imagined having experienced a simpler life: to have been born in
a small town in Ontario without language issues, to have married a
high school sweetheart, to have bought a house in the hometown, to
have raised children, travelled, bought a cottage. To have had normal
parents to act as grandparents instead of ones lost in the
semi-spectral existence of post-hippie, blissed-out blindness. If
only they'd waited for the new age to fully break upon the shore,
they could now be taking advantage of the alternate medicine, the
yoga, the acupuncture, the Tai Chi, the organic foods, and the
mindfulness that had finally spread to the mainstream. But no, they
had forged ahead seeking the golden horizons of self-fulfilment and
were now left behind by the shifts of time and twists of cultural
evolution. Amelia stared ahead of her wondering what it would have
been like to have experienced a plain, uncomplicated path. Normality,
consistency, continuity. Continuity. The light turned green and she
drove on, passing between the the old and the new buildings of the
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with their promise of high culture,
enough to unsettle her confusion of thoughts for a moment and make
her think of her imaginary double in that imaginary small town,
driving her own imaginary streets at this very minute, thinking how
wonderful it would be to escape the clinging communal knowledge and
suburban restraint of the small town and move to the stimulating
anonymity of a great city like Montreal.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Caught in the sequence of
red lights, she came to a rest at Mountain Street with the exclusive
Holt Renfrew on her right, and the revitalized Ritz Carlton Hotel ahead, luxury and exclusivity of wealth surrounding her, and as she
watched the pedestrians in their diversity pass by, she concluded
that ultimately, it was all about adaptation. Having lived all her
life in the inner city, she'd be ill-adapted to small town existence.
With this thought, she continued on to her Uncle Edward's with a
renewed sense of will, and a reinvigorated, though shaky, desire to
deal with the crumbling facade of her life. She had to be strong for
Duncan. She had to be strong for Uncle Edward. She had to be strong
for Hugh.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
While Jerome inspected the
fine-haired points of a selection of brushes, Thérèse looked down
at his studio table and searched for music among the papers, pens,
pencils, erasers, tubes of pigment, cotton rags, and opaque glass
jars sprouting paint brushes like perennials at the back of a garden.
Seeing as they both leaned towards a laissez-faire attitude to house
cleaning, she wondered how they'd manage living together. She
assembled the scattered cassette tape cases and created an arc like a
spread of playing cards, a curved mixture of colour
and black and white images: Pierre Flynn's <i>Jardines de Babylon </i>and
his<i> Le parfum du hasard; </i>Etienne Daho's <i>Paris
ailleurs,</i> and his <i>Pour nos vies martiennes;</i> Renaud's
<i>Morgane de toi</i>, <i>Mistral gagnant,</i> and<i> Marchand de
cailloux. </i>She then saw the edge
of an eighth cassette tape and slipped it out from beneath pencil
sketches of eyes. It was a band she was unfamiliar with. <i>The
La's</i>, with a photograph of a
woman's eye on the cover. Jerome was in a retro mood.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She
heard his approach and felt him kiss the nape of her neck and gently
run his hands down her arms. “Creating order out of chaos,” he
said
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You
and your old cassettes,” she said turning around to give him a
squeeze. “Why not get an iPod?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“With
my fingers covered in paint, cassettes are good. I can toss them
around and not worry.” He reached over for Pierre Flynn's <i>Babylon</i>.
“Anyway, I like the feel of them, the sound of them, and they've
taught me to wait for the better songs, or at least, my favourite
ones. Have you ever noticed how after listening to the sequence of
songs on a tape, you get to know which song is coming up, and in the
silence between songs, you can anticipate the first chords to come,
the words, the melody? You can almost hear them, recreate them in
your mind. Why should I purchase their digital phantoms? Little
ghosts unconnected to each other, mixed up and shuffled like a deck
of cards.” He gave her a hug. “I'm all set if you are.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thérèse
sat in the arranged armchair by the window and opened the book she'd
chosen to occupy her, a Boris Vian novel she'd never read before.
Jerome pressed the cassette into the machine and soon Pierre Flynn's
rich baritone voice was singing <i>Complainte du chercheur
d'or. </i>She couldn't concentrate
on the text before her, the music and lyrics leading her thoughts
astray, but she continued to look at the open book as a prop for her
portrait. She hadn't told Jerome she'd recalled the name of the man
who she thought responsible for the death of David Ashemore. She
hadn't told him she'd learnt of the name of Isabelle Cloutier from
Amelia who had mentioned it in the hopes of giving her some
confidence that the Ashemore case was being taken care of. And she
hadn't told him she'd found Ms. Cloutier's address and mailed her a
card with the simple inscription within, <i>David Ashemore –
Jarvis Whitehorne</i>, the acronym,
<i>P.R.I.S.M., </i>an acronym representing a program instigated by Whitehorne,<i> </i>and she had added her
initials, <i>T. L. / T. S.</i>
She didn't want to know of the resolutions, conclusions,
retributions. The card was her closure. An arrow shot in the dark. An
arrow for Jarvis Whitehorne.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In preparation to make a batch of
vegetable soup, Mary withdrew the large soup pot from the lower
cupboard and placed it on the counter near her cutting board. Taking
the top off and looking in like a magician into a top hat, she
noted the faint rings of colour, orange, green and blue, a remnant gleam of
olive oil embedded in the fine metal burnishings, and she thought of
the demonstrators last spring who had walked the streets of Montreal
banging their pots and pans in defiance of a legislative bill.
There's always something, she thought, there's always something. What
can you do? What can you do?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The aroma of her fresh baked carrot
muffins had made its way down the corridor into the living room where
Arthur Roquebrune sat musing over the chess board. The aroma
confounded his concentration as he began to anticipate the arrival of
Mary's baked goods, with the promise of melting butter on their fluffy, dark bronze-tinted cake-like textures, the touch of fresh jam, and the pot of tea
with its cozy in the shape of an orange cat. Edward Seymour looked on
as he massaged the scalp of George III who sat on his haunches beside
his chair. “Do I have you there Arthur?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh, it's far from over Ted, far from
over.” Arthur liked to use the shortened form of Edward's name when
they played their weekly Saturday morning chess game. A subtle
handicap to deflate the home team. “Let's hope we don't find
ourselves in perpetual check like last week. Somewhere out in the
ether your echo is still moving the Queen back and forth ad
infinitum.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I had a patient once,” said
Edward, the image reminding him of an old case, “who was taken with
the game, taken rather too far. It had turned into an addiction.”
Arthur nodded his head as he mapped out the possible moves and
countermoves before him. “He began to see games in patio stones,
floor tiles, women's patterned dresses and gingham tablecloths. He
did like Italian bistros. Well, we tried behavioural conditioning,
but the bio-feedback didn't seem to work. I suggested he take up
another game, distract him from the chess. I suggested tennis.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm, and so, what did the patient
do?” Arthur said not looking up.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well . . . he became addicted to the
game of Go. Instead of squares, his attention was drawn to the
interstices: the crossing of phone lines, the pound sign or
octothorpe, the lines and points between squares of floor tiles and
patio stones. The cross hairs in the very fabric of life. Lines,
lines, lines.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah,” Arthur emitted somewhat
distractedly.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“And then he took to carrying a box
of candy M&M's because they aped the convex shape of the playing
stones, and were cheap enough to leave behind on bistro tables and
friend's bathroom floors.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arthur looked up. “Montaigne thought
chess was absurd and trivial,” he said, and then shook his head. His thoughts drifted back in time and he wondered if Jacques Cartier
and his men had played the game at Charlesbourg-Royal during that
difficult winter of 1541-42. Did they have the necessary leisure?
Would it have soothed their nerves? Had it been a welcome distraction
from the dangers facing them?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, yes, your Montaigne. Are you
still reading his diary of that journey to Italy?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arthur moved his black Bishop to King
Bishop's fourth, and then sat back. “Yes, yes. There are some
interesting moments and details. Local customs, food, that kind of
thing. The spas, baths, the drinking of the waters, but the sections
recounted by his hommes d'affaires<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">
</span></span></span>dwell too much on Montaigne's
bladder and stomach ailments yes, due to his suffering from the
stone. Perhaps some are more interested in how many stools he passed
that day, how many stones, or the quantity of urine.” Arthur shook
his head. “But I will continue. The good outweighs the bad.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Edward rested his chin on his clasped
hands in a semblance of prayer, and scanned the chess board in an
overtly secretive manner, pursing his lips and blinking his eyes as
if communicating in code.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The Montaigne is not as entertaining
as the <i>Vathek </i>by Beckford though,” Arthur continued. “This
<i>Vathek </i>wasn't on my list of books to read, books I wanted to
read when young but never had the time, but my bookseller pushed it
on me saying he thought I'd enjoy the tale. Somehow I think I'll
never get through my list. It keeps growing.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Edward nodded absentmindedly. “Hmm.”
He moved his white Knight to King Bishop's third. He crossed his arms, and in the silence that fell upon the game with its counterfeit
infinities, Hugh made his appearance. His clipping nails upon the
hardwood floor drew their attention from their wooden officers and
foot soldiers to Hugh's sprightly curiosity. George III lowered his
head and sniffed him as he passed by.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“And who do we have here,” Arthur
said dropping his hand down to entice Hugh with a stranger's scent.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hugh, an orphan for the night.
Amelia's pet. She dropped him off last night. George here is
uncertain what's going on.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, yes, territory and all that.”
Arthur scratched Hugh's ears and rubbed his back. “That reminds
me,” he said, “last week when you were telling me of your friend
Ms. Cloutier who was looking into the David Ashemore case, I wanted
to tell you he was an orphan, adopted by the Ashemore's when a baby.
When Amelia walked in, and we stopped our discussion of the Ashemore
case, I never got to mention it. Perhaps it would help your Ms.
Cloutier with her interests.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Edward looked down wondering if he
should reveal that Isabelle had reached a cul de sac. “That's an
interesting fact Arthur. I'll let her know next time we talk.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As Arthur returned his attention to the
checkered square between them, Mary made her way into the living room
with a tray laden with muffins and mugs of steaming tea. She didn't
like to see grown men mincing about playing Mother with fine china
cups. Big mugs of tea it was. The chess players preferred them as
well, something to warm their hands, stimulating distant memories of
hot chocolate and childhood.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Thank you Mary, something to keep us
going,” Edward said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, yes, thank you Mary, your
muffins are ambrosia,” Arthur said smiling up at her. “My dear
wife thanks you for the recipe.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, well she's very welcome Mr.
Roquebrune. Glad you both like them. So now, who's winning this
week?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hard to say at the moment, but we
may be here some time.” Edward winked up at her.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I'll be making a quick vegetable
soup for lunch. It might be ready before you are. I'll be back to top
up your teas. Enjoy gentlemen.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They thanked her again and watched her
departure with a sense of admiration and guilt at being so pampered. Hugh, looking up at the tray, sniffed the air, a physical language
that still resonated with his human counterparts.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As Edward busied himself with his
muffin and tea, Arthur contemplated taking his pawn with his own
pawn, but then quickly considered that moving his Bishop to King's
fifth would be the better choice. He did so, and raised an eyebrow on
his opponent.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arthur, now relaxed and confident,
prepared a muffin with butter and a touch of marmalade.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That move seems familiar Arthur. Are
we repeating ourselves?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arthur's laughter faltered with the
appearance of Amelia and Mary holding an arm around her
shoulders. He stood up out of concern and respect, pieces of his
muffin falling to the floor where Hugh and George quickly competed to
snuffle them up. “Now sit yourself down and have a word with your
uncle and I'll bring you a nice cup of tea.” Mary exchanged a
glance of deep concern with Edward before going back to the kitchen.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What's the matter my dear?” Edward
said, quickly running through the possibilities of distress: Duncan
running off with a circus performer, money woes, car failure, the
reappearance of her parents.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She told them how she had been phoned
on Friday night by Duncan's friends wondering where he was. How she'd
phoned the shop and then driven down to find him lying unconscious
between the bookstacks, and how she'd called an ambulance and spent
the night at the hospital hoping he'd survive what ever caused his
collapse. She was wiping tears away as Mary brought her a big mug of
hot tea, and together with her uncle and Arthur's kind words, she
began to feel the solidarity of family and close friends fortify her
belief that all would be well. “Don't worry Amelia. I'll make some
phone calls. I still have many connections with the Royal Vic. We'll
make sure he gets top notch care,” her Uncle said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arthur sat down heavily upon his chair,
overcome with a nauseating dread that Duncan's collapse may have had
some connection with Thérèse LaFlamme's in Bergen. He glanced at
the chess board and saw nothing but randomness and escape, and he
recalled the words of Montaigne: <i>quelle corde de son esprit ne
touche et n'employe ce niais et puerile jeu? </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>© ralph patrick mackay</i></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-39082781002761177102014-05-14T13:19:00.000-04:002014-05-20T12:51:41.366-04:00Yes Cecil A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-Four<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kV2LcBUMEPokFWp6v_g_8ZDlBdfAvRyAd-OcXDg_Xj6XjwA2mTtbp81t3mu5iiavGSyzxdITv05CZQYkGcoi4yaq4HpAQE748qPntMlRJfFG1BIQwXVNYvXO8GZhjyKq3Aeo7A/s1600/coats2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kV2LcBUMEPokFWp6v_g_8ZDlBdfAvRyAd-OcXDg_Xj6XjwA2mTtbp81t3mu5iiavGSyzxdITv05CZQYkGcoi4yaq4HpAQE748qPntMlRJfFG1BIQwXVNYvXO8GZhjyKq3Aeo7A/s1600/coats2a.jpg" height="196" width="200" /></a>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 <i>The Word</i> 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
<i>The Froth on the Daydream,</i> the small 1970 Penguin Modern
Classic with the cover image by Felix Labisse, a book he'd purchased
from <i>The Word</i> 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.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What was it with Beckett and the
letter M anyway?” a male voice behind him asked.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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 <i>Men Without Hats.</i> Worn with irony, or as some kind
of emblem of antiestablishmentarianism, Pavor could only wonder.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Magdalen Mental Mercyseat, Murphy,
Malone, Molloy, Moran, Mahood . . . and yes, Macmann. There are
others I'm sure.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor thought the man's patent, hadn't
quite pended.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He noticed he was holding a book
entitled <i>Visions</i> by Leonid
Andreyev, the hardcover dustjacket revealed an image of the
bearded author looking much like a 1970s French Canadian folk singer.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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 <i>Godot</i> 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.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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 <i>Kenge and Carboy</i>.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, that's me.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“There's a couple of books of yours
here we'd like you to sign, if it's no problem that is.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Umm, I bet.” Pavor began to sign
the copy of <i>Olivaster Moon</i> when he heard the approach of the
lugubrious man with the moustache.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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 <i>can</i> tell
you, <i>I</i> can't reread them if that's any help.” He smiled.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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 <i>snurd</i> 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.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Andreyev? No, I'm sorry, I haven't.”
He signed the second book, <i>Rex in Arcadia.</i> “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.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
His cell phone rang.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Reluctantly he pulled his phone out. He recognized the number. “Hey Jerome, how's it going?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sorry for calling you on a Saturday
morning. Hope I didn't disturb you.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No, not at all. Just out on errands.
How's Thérèse doing”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Wow, the perks of your trade eh?
I'll talk to Melisande, but it sounds lovely.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“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.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor had yet to think of honeymoon
destinations but such a visit seemed a pleasant precursor to a trip
abroad. “Thanks Jerome. Sounds great.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Good. I'll talk to you soon. Say hi
to Melisande for me. Ciao.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She sighed deeply and
wrapped a towel around her hair.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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 <i>André
and Me</i>. 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.</div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With failing logic and a
sense of shame she wished it was his doppelganger in the hospital and
not Duncan.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Roused with a sense of
falling, she looked at the clock and saw she'd only been asleep for
ten minutes.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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 <i>Argonautica </i>by Apollonius of Rhodes, <i>My Friend's Book</i>
by Anatole France, <i>The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft </i>by
George Gissing, and <i>McAlmon's Chinese Opera</i> 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 <i>The
Phantom Tollbooth, </i>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, <i>fil de voce</i>, like a
bedtime story. It might be just the thing to bring him back to
consciousness.</div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-82785892255646504412014-04-30T23:32:00.000-04:002014-05-07T16:18:57.240-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-Three<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtiROyyejaz0lkTuM36onZP1SzqT-78MW2ye_9gRfG0DJaDm42IhMaSA6g3-p14DfWOUvK287IfYz96C9Wr0jxVVWS8JOXCCZ8oen5qchyk9qo8Fki8Jx8nRbfFeK88a3NzvdU1g/s1600/marbled35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtiROyyejaz0lkTuM36onZP1SzqT-78MW2ye_9gRfG0DJaDm42IhMaSA6g3-p14DfWOUvK287IfYz96C9Wr0jxVVWS8JOXCCZ8oen5qchyk9qo8Fki8Jx8nRbfFeK88a3NzvdU1g/s1600/marbled35.jpg" height="126" width="200" /></a><i>He opened his eyes and found himself
lying upon a small bed in a small room. He noticed a porthole above
him framed with dark smooth wood. Kneeling upon the pillow, he looked
out but could only see a fog of shifting patterns spinning slowly
like a kaleidoscope of café au laits. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Out in the hallway, the walls were
wainscoted and featured polished brass hand rails, and beneath his
bare feet, a carpet runner leading to a set of narrow stairs. As he
made his way to the top stair he could see a large wood-panelled room
with four figures seated around a table. Approaching, he recognized
Yves wearing a captain's hat and puffing on a pipe, and beside him,
Melisande and Thérèse dressed in dark suits, white shirts and black
ties, and beside them, Jerome in brown rags with a cigarette behind
his ear. They looked up at him. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<i>What's put on a table, cut, but
never eaten?” Jerome asked.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Duncan didn't understand.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>They all smiled as Yves produced a
pack of cards and began to shuffle the deck while he hummed the tune
to Gilligan's Island. His navy pea jacket sported a crest with a
large fish. Duncan turned around and saw Amelia in a long evening
gown with pearls around her neck, Hugh at her feet. She waved to him.
Nearby stood Tom wearing a long green overcoat and holding an
umbrella in one hand and a swinging pendulum in the other. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<i>Don't worry Dunc,” Tom said,
“I've brought my ultrasonic weapon in case we need to break down
any walls. We'll find your old friend David Ashemore don't you worry.
Have a drink, relax.”</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Standing to his left he discovered
P. K. Loveridge in a butler's outfit holding a tray with shot glasses
arranged in a spiral formation. He took one, drank it, and found
himself out on the deck of the ship. The life saver read: SS Qupode.
Leaning on the railing, he looked down but neither saw nor heard any
evidence of water, only foam. They were floating on foam.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<i>How deep is the ocean?” asked
Yves who now stood beside him puffing away on his pipe.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<i>A stone's throw,” replied Tom,
standing on the other side of him, swinging his pendulum out over the
railing.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Yves took the pipe from between his
lips, the smoke rising from the bowl of fading embers, and tossed it
into the fog. “I feel we're close to L'Isle de Mont Lautré. It
shouldn't be long now. Tabarnac Dunc, you'll be fine, just fine.”</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Duncan felt extremely fatigued, and
turning around, found himself back in his childhood bedroom, the den
over the garage. The large twin windows were open and he was lying on
his bed looking at the night sky, the strobe light of Place Ville
Marie swept the underside of the clouds. He began to count slowly
to eleven. One, two, three, four, five . . He remembered those early
years going to the library with David to take out Tintin books. He
could see the small, white clap-board library, the steps down to the
children's library section, the Librarians at the desk, the
colourful books, the path home through the park with its benches with
elderly people feeding squirrels and pigeons. The path home. The
light swept the clouds once again. One, two, three, four . . . The
hidden lighthouse searching for lost souls. He breathed in the scent
of rain. Petrichor Amelia had said. From the Greek petros for stone,
and ichor, for the golden blood of the Gods. Petrichor. He looked
beside him and there was the National Geographic map from his youth
tacked to the fake wood panelling, a map he would gaze upon for hours
dreaming about the Mediterranean Sea from the straits of Gibraltar to the port of Jaffa where Jonah set sail, and everything between, the place names magical, mythical,
romantic. He could see the pencil lines he'd made as a youth, the
supposed route of Ulysses according to some book he'd read and long
forgotten. How ridiculous he now thought. How ridiculous. The light
from Place Ville Marie swept past once more. He began to count, one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven . . . .</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>*</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Doctor checked the vital signs
monitor and then looked down at the chart of test results. The
Glasgow Coma Scale looked promising: GCS 11= E4 V3 M4 at 7:10 this
morning. Eye response at 4 points: spontaneous eye opening. Verbal
response at 3: random words exclaimed: <i>haddock? Cupid? </i>Motor
response at 4: withdrawal from pain stimulus.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That was promising she thought. She
lifted Mr. Strand's left eyelid and noted the condition of the pupil
and then with two gentle movements, brushed his brown hair back from
his forehead thinking he didn't look his age. There was something
about his chin and the curve of his lips that seemed familiar. She
rearranged the bedspread and held his right hand and bent down to
speak softly into his right ear. “Hello Duncan, my name is Doctor
Julia Yee. You're doing fine. Your wife Amelia was here with you and
will be back soon. We're taking good care of you. Don't worry.
You'll be fine.” And with that she gave his hand a squeeze. There
was a slight response in return. Then, with the soft edge of her
thumb, she swept a stray eyelash off his cheek.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>A fragrance of sandalwood
and jasmine overcame him. Memories were evoked, memories of
Montreal's Chinatown and the Chinese soap he used to buy when he
dated Yiyin, the Bee & Flower brand, so beautifully wrapped and
labelled, everyday exotics, golden emblems of their time together. He
was now sitting across from her in a booth at the Tean Hong Café,
the restaurant that had burnt down years ago. She was explaining the
various Dim Sum dishes to him while he practised his chopsticks. The
waiter, a young student in black dress pants, white shirt and black
bow tie, brought them a pot of Chinese tea, and she began to pour. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The light from Place
Ville Marie swept by once more, and he began to count again. One,
two, three, four, five, six . . . .</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande sipped her tea and
looked out the window. She could see Pavor scraping frost from his
windshield and then brushing it off. He looked up, noticed her, and
waved. She smiled and waved back. A few moments later, she watched as
he pulled out from the curb and made his way east along Sherbrooke
Street on his way to her apartment to feed Clio, and to stop by St.
Viateur Bakery for a dozen sesame seed bagels and hummus. She felt
somewhat guilty for not being there to feed Clio her early morning
meal, but inversely, she luxuriated in the freedom from
responsibility. Looking back to the parking space Pavor had vacated,
she noticed an oily slick, circular rings of orange, then indigo,
light blue and back to dark orange and the blues once more. Her
Mother used to say such spots were evidence of rainbows touching
down. She sat at Pavor's desk and stared at the small antique brass
compass resting on a stack of leather bound notebooks and wondered if
he'd ever witnessed a rainbow from this window.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She put her tea down and
opened the central desk drawer, and slipped out the latest instalment
of his work in progress. He'd told her it was there if she wanted to
look it over with her keen-eye for typos, faulty grammar, factual
mistakes, and implausibilities, and give him what he called his much
needed 'elaborative and corrective reinforcements.' Rereading his
own work was the most creatively draining task of any day, 'like
retracing my steps across a beach looking for a cipher in the sand.'
It was a sentence he often used. If she'd come across the sentence in
his work, she might have to put brackets around it and add a question
mark in the margin.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She opened the binder and
began to read:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex Under Glass, Part Eight</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex parked the Venetian
green sedan in an unlit spot around the corner from Vernon Smythe's
house. The digital numbers on the clock glowed like binary poison,
11:00. Too late for people to be walking their dogs. Most residents
were likely preparing for bed, checking their emails, or hypnotized
by the litany from the late night news. He folded the car rental
papers and pushed them into the inside pocket of his jacket. It was a
good time for him to make his surprize visit. With his collar up
around his neck, hands in pockets, and a dark ball cap on his head,
he counted the steps as he made his way to Vernon's front door:
forty-two. As he pushed the door bell, he thought he saw something
move on the lawn to his left. There was a faint hint of skunk in the
air. A shiver rippled down his spine.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, who is it?” Vernon
demanded, his voice sounding more annoyed than perplexed as it issued
from the small intercom speaker above the doorbell.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I come bearing gifts from
the old city of Prague,” Rex said. He waited in silence, casting
worried glances at the shrubbery. Then he heard footsteps approach
the door, a hesitation as if he was being viewed on a video
screen, and finally the door opened.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well Rex, you've caught
me on my movie night. Come in, come in.” Vernon sniffed a few
times. “A bit skunky out there tonight isn't it. Or is that one of
your gifts?” He stood there dressed in a long, richly woven brocade
house coat and matching slippers. “Have you ever seen the movie,
<i>The Dark Corner</i>, 1946?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex shook his head.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Don't worry Rex, few
have.” He motioned to the half open door revealing a fully
furnished drawing room. “Please join me. Don't worry about your
shoes. Yes, <i>The Dark Corner,</i> quite a film. You've arrived just
as the camera panned away from the great Eddie Heywood on the piano
in the High Hat Club. Ah, those were the days, elegance, savoir
faire.” He motioned to Rex to take a seat at one of the two
highback upholstered chairs facing the large flatscreen television on
an antique table. The film had been paused leaving a still shot of an
attractive actress sitting at a nightclub table wearing a striking
black jacket with white stripes in a V design. “Lucille Ball,” he
said, gesturing to the actress on the screen. “Perhaps you know of
her from old reruns of <i>I Love Lucy</i>? The famous scene in the
chocolate factory with the conveyor belt conveying confections
unremittingly. Oh, my, such hilarity is rare indeed, rare indeed. How
we laughed.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What's <i>The Dark Corner</i>
about?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I'm sorry Rex, I didn't
offer you anything to drink. You must be jet lagged and dehydrated.
What can I offer you?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I'm fine. No need.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, if you change your
mind, the bar is over there,” he said pointing to the corner.
“Beer, orange juice, tomato juice, ginger ale, water. Help
yourself.” Vernon sipped his <i>Cinzano Rosso</i> and crossed his
legs. “So, <i>The Dark Corner</i> is a lesser known film noir. A
private detective played by Mark Stevens—a part more suited for
Alan Ladd but alas, he was busy with <i>The Blue Dahlia,</i> another
film noir which came out the same year—the detective is framed for
the murder of a playboy lawyer who was having an affair with the
younger wife of a wealthy older art dealer. The art dealer set it up
using a thug to do his dirty work. Lucille Ball plays the detective's
secretary. Quite simple really, but the writing is decent, and
Lucille Ball provides a very good performance.” He picked up the
remote control. “I can start it from the beginning if you'd like to
watch.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Evan Dashmore told me
about the young man who had an affair with your wife, the files on the
thumb drive, and how you were essentially responsible for his death.”
Rex withdrew a thumb drive from his jacket pocket and held it in his
open palm. “Evan wanted to mail this to you. He advised me to avoid
you altogether. Change my name. Start a new life.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vernon sipped his drink and
rested his head back as he contemplated this revelation. “William
Powell might have been good for the part as well, but I imagine he
was on contract for the Thin Man films. Yes, good old William
Powell,” he said, looking up into the darkness seemingly lost in
nostalgia. “Jean Harlow, such a tragic loss. Love of his life, dead
at 26. And then his son, a suicide. Yes, Rex, even the high and
mighty have their afflictions.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What's the truth Vernon?
Did you drive the young man to his death?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vernon placed his tumbler on
the side table and rested his hands on the arms of the chair. “Rex,
Rex, Rex. Evan has played you. He's taken the shark out of you. The
young man in question worked for the service and was planning to
reveal certain secrets about our contracting of certain operations.
He was discredited and fired. As for having an affair with my wife,
that is neither here nor there. As for myself, I have been retired
from the service for a year now. The private contract companies I
oversee provide solutions for international problems. We use finesse,
not hit men. We provide training and techniques, expedience and
methodology. Today's science and technology has made our work much
more efficient. You've worked for me, not the service. Cash on the
barrel. You should have no quarrel with me.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Maybe I'll have that
drink.” Rex walked over to the bar and opened the small fridge and
took out a bottle of orange juice, popped open the cap and drank
deeply. “Evan thought you might have sent me to Prague to set us up
like your film noir detective.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I think Mr. Dashmore has
been reading too many European spy novels.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Why did you send me to
Prague?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vernon directed the remote
control towards the television screen reducing it to a dark shadow.
“If you must know, it was sleight of hand. I needed someone to draw
attention away from the man I sent to Prague on your flight, make it
look like you were the courier. Information was purposely leaked
concerning your connection with my interests. Did you notice extra
attention to your passage through customs, the taxi driver, the hotel
workers. Probably not. They're very good.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex reviewed his memories of
the trip, his arrival and subsequent movements, and could now see how
people's interactions with him could be reinterpreted. He'd been
followed and watched. “What about Evan? Won't he be under suspicion
now?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Evan works for Czech
intelligence. I imagine he's now recognized he's been played. You
were my smoke screen. Your final payment is in the second drawer, on
your right.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex opened the drawer and
took out a legal size envelope. He placed it in his jacket pocket
without looking at the contents. “So what about the thumb drive?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“A souvenir.” Vernon
drank the remnants of his vermouth and stood up. “The world we
inhabit Rex, has a custom of misfortune. Civilization is a thin
topsoil easily swept away by barbarity. Stoics cultivated the soil
for the nihilists to sow and religious extremists to waste.” He
walked towards the bar, hands in his house coat. “This is not a
world for jaded postdocs, cynical ambivalents and hip divines. You
may think I have an endless Rolodex of disreputables, but really my
work is the very syntax of international cooperation. The sand in the
mortar that keeps the masonry of relations intact.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You know Vernon, I don't
know who, or what to believe anymore. I don't think I'm suited for
your world.” Rex placed the half-finished orange juice on the bar
and taking the thumb drive from his pocket, dropped it into the wide
opening of the bottle. They both watched it sink to the bottom, a
shadow in the glass.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vernon looked at his watch.
“Ah, 11:30, half-past hanging time. I want to thank you Rex for
your work. If you have second thoughts, you know how to contact me.”
He held out his arm as a sign to escort him to the door.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the foyer, Rex noticed
the painting leaning against the wall, “Why don't you put that up
on the wall?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vernon turned his head
sideways. “Ah, yes, de Chirico's <i>The Nostalgia of the Infinite</i>.
A decent copy, but a fake as they say. Those two figures in the
foreground and their dark shadows are us Rex. The tower and its
flags dominate our lives. We're just shadows in the sun.” Vernon
approached the painting. “Why don't you take it. It requires a new
home.” He picked it up and held it out towards Rex.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They shared eye contact for
ten seconds, then Rex accepted the gift.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Vernon opened the front door
and Rex stopped, and held out his hand. “Good bye Vernon.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A brief solid handshake
passed between them.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Not at all, not at all,”
Vernon said. “Careful as you go . . . mind the skunks.” He
watched Rex meld into the shadows of the street and then closed the
door. He walked towards the staircase and stood with his hand on the
ornately carved newel post, one foot on the lowest stair, and
listened. Nothing. Not tonight he thought, not tonight. He would not
see his ghostly double tonight.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He entered the main floor
powder room to pee, and standing before the mirror, noticed the two vertical lines that rose between his eyes to meet the horizontal wrinkles of his forehead, a crossroads which produced an outline reminiscent of the outstretched arms of Christ the Redeemer, the one that loomed over Rio de Janeiro on Corcovado Mountain. Looking directely ahead, he rested his gaze upon the bags under his eyes, crescent shaped dumplings, puffy, plump. He stared at them until they brought to mind the rounded scales of a balance, weary with the weight of decision. How ravaged his face seemed. How grim. In another dimension he was certain he'd found a
sense of the sacred, lived a life of beneficence, of honours, and one night that munificent soul would be waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, and
would lead him away.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Melisande closed the binder
and put it back in the drawer. Her tea was cold. She stared at the
passing clouds and wondered where Pavor was going with this
narrative. Swinging around in his chair, she got up and looked at the
painting hanging over his small fireplace, Jerome's copy of the de
Chirico mentioned in the story, <i>The Nostalgia of the Infinite</i>. She
breathed in deeply and thought a quick hot shower would clear her
mind.<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-10125023125938132912014-04-18T21:50:00.001-04:002014-04-22T22:01:02.955-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-Two<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJrFppGI8xIbIq7MmSmj5W_8-22kwSs40ph8jevGf8o27My7_uK1XIlbS0GLoYuxrzROUAKeaUv2AU7dCuN-OnJNC1yg7AePr6cGBEopuntl0g7_1vFjjlgrdfbD3KP0ezC4z1Q/s1600/corridor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJrFppGI8xIbIq7MmSmj5W_8-22kwSs40ph8jevGf8o27My7_uK1XIlbS0GLoYuxrzROUAKeaUv2AU7dCuN-OnJNC1yg7AePr6cGBEopuntl0g7_1vFjjlgrdfbD3KP0ezC4z1Q/s1600/corridor.jpg" height="200" width="165" /></a>Mrs. Shimoda sat at the dining room
table performing her monthly Saturday morning ritual of going through
her purse, purging it of loose change, bills of sale, old tissues,
slips of paper with appointment reminders, crumpled grocery lists
like shadows of every list made and every one to come, pink post-it
notes with numbers for fashion patterns desired and notions required,
individually wrapped candies from restaurant visits with her son, ATM
bank receipts as thin and smooth as India paper, and the inevitable
dross of dusty lint in the seams of interior pockets. Hesitating, she
withdrew a small strip of cloth in a pale shade of purple, one she
had brought to the fabric store to seek out the right buttons for the
blouse she'd been making; she rubbed it between her right thumb and
forefinger, and recalled the Sunday afternoon she wore it to her
grandson's birthday party, an afternoon overflowing with moments of
gratitude and pleasure, moments of lucid smiles and gentle laughter
no camera could possibly capture. She placed it on the table beside
the loose change, and in doing so, shuffled a few coins off the edge
with her sleeve. She heard them fall and noticed one rolling in a
long arc towards the corner cabinet like a rogue car wheel after an
accident. With a sigh, she made her way over and bent down on her
knees to look underneath, and as she reached in to sweep the ten cent
coin out, she saw the rough side of a jigsaw puzzle piece nestled
behind one of the front legs. Picking it up, she recognized the
shape. She turned it over to the shiny side glazed like a porcelain
bathroom fixture, and there was the hand of the geisha holding the
parasol, the missing symmetrical jigsaw piece reaching out to embrace
and complete the image with the other 999 interlocking fragments she
no longer had. Her son had returned the puzzle to the shop seeking a
refund. She could hear his laconic explanation, 'defective' he would
have said, 'missing a piece'. She looked down at this now redundant
fragment in the palm of her hand thinking of a compass, a delicate
hand holding the shaft of the bamboo oil-paper parasol, the thumb
pointing North.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She couldn't conceive how it found its
way under the corner cabinet.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Back at her seat, she began to return
items into her purse: wallet, keys, pens, a vintage compact with an
image of pale flowers which reminded her of an Aubusson carpet, lip
gloss, a notebook, a package of tissues, a comb, a folded blue nylon
tote bag in its pouch which mimicked her dark blue and white
embroidered <i>omamori </i>(a
gift from her daughter-in-law as a charm for her travel safety, one
she hoped would bring green lights, never red), a tape measure,
miniature scissors for coupon cutting, spare reading glasses, a nail
file, and a few adhesive bandages for small cuts. Picking up the
jigsaw piece, she thought, for the briefest of moments, of placing it
in the bottom of her purse, but quickly dismissed it as an idea
induced by a mischievous spirit. She would dig a hole in the earth at
the base of her small bamboo shrub in her back garden, and bury it
deep enough to avoid the reach of squirrels. Best place for it she
thought. She looked out the dining room window and was reassured that
such a task was still possible. The snowfall had been minimal over
the last week. The ground was still friable. Tomorrow, she thought.
She would bury it tomorrow. Her morning shopping lay ahead.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Halfway down the hill on her way
towards the Atwater Market in search of a nice piece of fish for her
dinner that evening, she recognized a car coming up the hill, the
driver looking tired and expressionless, her hands grabbing the
steering wheel at the eleven and one position as if it at a ship's
wheel and lost at sea. Mrs. Shimoda smiled and nodded her head, but
Amelia didn't see her. Poor girl, she thought, preoccupied with
Duncan's business closure. Amelia had told her all about it and had
jokingly reassured her that they wouldn't be bringing the weight
of a bookshop home. She <i>had</i> been reassured, though the thought
of lying on her bed beneath a dangerous weight of books on the floor
above had given her a singular nightmare one evening. She'd dreamt of
waking up in her room with books pouring from the ceiling like sand
into the bottom of an hour-glass, an unstoppable influx of print, and
there she was clambering up the growing pyramid of books only to slip
down to the bottom perimeter where the door of her room had been
wedged shut. She had awoken, the sheets in disarray, the ceiling
intact, mumbling the word hashigo, hashigo, hashigo.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The sidewalks were more slippery than
she'd expected, the patches of ice and city-spread sand were
distributed along the concrete path like frozen ponds and hazards of
a golf course. Carefully she made her way down the hill. She decided
she would take a taxi back from the market, and she wondered with
anticipation if she'd be fortunate to come across Olivier. Such a
pleasant smile and so polite. So helpful opening doors and helping
her with packages. She was usually disinclined to participate in
small talk, but with Olivier it was different. He asked how she was,
talked about the weather, asked after her family, discussed his, all
with his Haitian-accented English which charmed her into amiable and
relaxed responses as she breathed in the sandalwood aroma of his car,
making her feel as if she was sitting on a sofa in his living room.
She had to admit, she accentuated her elderly qualities when around
him, stooping slightly, walking a little slower, sighing with a touch
of dramatic nuance. It was all give and take, authentic and studied,
like life itself she thought.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Isabelle Cloutier closed her
eyes and listened to the coffee machine. The inhalation and
exhalation of water and air sounded like a Jacques Cousteau
underwater adventure, the clicks, the bubbling, the drips and
splashes of the dark tinted liquid leading to the heightened finale
as the machine coughed and burbled, an expiration akin to the scuba
diver taking the mouth piece from between their lips and releasing
the oxygen into the water.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Breathing in the aroma of
the fresh-brewed coffee, she felt as weightless as her imaginary
diver rising to the surface of morning.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pouring herself a cup, she
walked over to her bistro table by the window where a sun-catcher in
the shape of a snowy owl cast an opaque reflection upon her. She
turned her tablet on and clicked on her Twitter account with its made
up name and Twitter handle, <i>AtheneNoctua.</i> Her profile image, a
small owl, looked back at her as she entered her password. Each Tweeter's distinctive profile picture acted as an immediate sign post to their content, a diverse news feed for her interests. Her eyes
quickly scanned the tweets, skimming the surfaces, reading the first words and passing on:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A question of . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Scientists find . .
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Do you have . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Watch this . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A look at . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Is the . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When asked to . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How crime will . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Who was responsible . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Your voice will . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Around in circles . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So excited . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Looking for a . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I can't be the only . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Nothing's more . . .
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What does it say . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
RIP . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Good morning . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Excited about all . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In a cab with . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Scientists have made . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sad news . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Oh joy . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If the weather continues . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Still buzzing from . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I've decided i don't . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The top 20% of . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
On this day . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Are Saturn's rings . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Between her hangover and her work week
exhaustion, her concentration was as passive as a cat lying in the
sun. She logged out of Twitter and checked her personal email.
Messages and updates from a science magazine, online shoe sale,
<i>Clearly Contacts</i>, travel opportunities, and one from <i>Sotheby's
</i>with a catalogue of an upcoming sale of nineteenth century art.
She knew her energy was low as she logged out of her account without
looking at the catalogue, usually such a pleasurable weekend pastime
as she searched for possible depictions of owls in paintings or
sculpture she might conceivably afford.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Looking down into the back yard, she
noticed her empty garbage can on its side, possibly knocked over by
the wind, its dark opening like a tunnel entrance. This triggered the
memory of a dream. She'd been walking into a tunnel, about twenty
feet in circumference, and after a long trek in, the tunnel had begun to
narrow, gradually at first, and then dramatically so, until thirty
feet ahead of her, her flash light had revealed a convergence of the
circle into a point like the inside of a steeple. Turning around, all had
been dark. She couldn't see the light of the entrance, and she
thought the tunnel must have curved. It was then she'd awoken wrapped
and tangled in her sheets feeling frantic and trapped. She rubbed the
sleep from her eyes and wondered if it was symbolic of her evening
spent with her girlfriend Carol at the book launch she'd dragged her
to. 'You might meet someone new,' she'd said, 'someone literary,
artsy.' She sipped her coffee recalling the evening spent drinking
cheap red wine while a University of Montreal professor read from his
latest book of poetry surrounded by hipsters with facial hair, plaid
shirts, small fedoras, tattoos, dark rimmed glasses, and sloppy jeans
and running shoes. The young women had worn outfits with shear
panels, visible zippers, tall leather boots, and looked like they
lived off cigarettes and carrot juice. And everyone had been so
bloody young, and seemingly more concerned with the activity around smart
phones and selfies than the obscure meanings of the poet's offeringss. What
had Carol been thinking? But they'd had fun afterwards at the trendy
<i>Baldwin Barmacie</i> on Laurier, where they talked, releasing all the stress and demands of their respective jobs while confirming
each other's woes in soft voices and undertones. She smiled thinking
of Carol's wordplay concerning the young men and women at the
reading: <i>Between the sad men and the Mad Men, you have the plaid
men. Between the tattoos and the Jimmy Choos, you have the whose
who's.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the living room, sitting in her
comfortable high back corner chair, she curled her legs up and
wrapped a crochet throw around her shoulders and stared at the
painting entitled <i>Phantom of the North</i>, a Great Grey Owl in
flight, its piercing yellow eyes and hooked yellow beak facing her as
if she was the prey, the enormous head and its heart-shaped face with
semi-circular feather arrangements in curving lines of super-symmetry
and its extraordinary outstretched wings showing off its banded
feathers ready to wrap her in an embrace before the talons found
their mark.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After a long, seemingly dreamless
period of moody darkness—imageless dreams sightless people are said
to experience—she thought of the abundance of evocative dreams
she'd had this past week. A dream with owls was not uncommon with
her but this one had been unusual. She'd awoken on Thursday morning
to recall one of finding an owl in a barn-like modern house; she'd
looked up to see it in the peak of the rafters, and she'd opened a
door and called to it as if to a cat. As it swooped towards her,
she'd prostrated herself on the floor facing a glass-fronted China
cabinet which reflected the owl's flight over her, a baby owl she
could see. Then fear had entered as she'd sensed a large mother owl
swoop down and join the owlet. Realizing the owls were still inside
the building, she had opened a further door and followed the same
procedure only to find herself in a large screened in porch and she
had to reenact the process once more. Finally, the owls had been
released and she was standing in the sun, a sense of great
contentment and freedom overcoming her. If it signified a revelation
in her life, she had yet to see how.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A small stack of envelopes and flyers,
Friday's mail, lay on the table by the door. She got up and brought
them back to her chair and sorted through them. An envelope with
Edward Seymour's distinctive script caught her eye. No stamp.
Hand-delivered. She opened it and found a card with an image of a
Dutch interior. Her eyes first lighted upon the dog in the foreground
beside the leaning broom, then the grey-striped cat with its arched
tail in the middle distance, then the parrot in the opened cage above, then the white piece of paper, an
envelope, on the bottom stair to the right, and only then did her
eyes wander down the black and white tile floor to the the depths of
the painting and notice a framed picture in a room to the right, but
quickly concluded it was a mirror and the reflection of a
black-hatted man with his back to her facing a young woman in blue to
his right. It was such a richly detailed interior, it pulled her in, instilling a desire to be there,
petting the dog, cuddling the cat, calling up to the parrot, and
reaching down for the letter and opening it to read its contents.
Isabelle turned the card over and read that the painting was called,
<i>View of a Corridor </i>by Samuel van Hoogstraten, 1662, Oil on
Canvas, Collection of Dryham Park, National Trust. Within, she read
Edward's short note.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Dear Isabelle,</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I was rummaging about in desk
drawers and found some old cards I bought when on vacation in England
in the mid-eighties, my foray into the Cotswolds and environs, all
Chipping this and Chipping that. Such lovely stone buildings in that
area of the world. Such golden warmth. I remember visiting Stanway
House and from there, making my way south west exploring Cheltenham,
Gloucester, Bristol, Bath and all interesting sights along and around
the way, including Dryham Park which has, I seem to remember, an
astonishing collection of Dutch art. You must make a trip my dear.
Well worth the time. The cage door is ajar. The cage door is ajar.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I just wanted to let you know that
our Thérèse Laflamme visited me unannounced this week, and her
memory of the David Ashemore case had returned to her. Something
about reading a friend's work of fiction in progress had triggered
her recall. I just wanted to warn you in case I had possibly
mentioned your name to my niece who is now friends with Thérèse,
and who could possibly mention your name and your enquiry on my
behalf. My old brain. I can't be sure if I mentioned it to her or
not. In any case, I told Thérèse to get on with her life. If there
were wrong doings involved in Ashemore's death, time will work it out.
It is out of our hands now.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I can't guarantee anything. A strong
willed young woman like Thérèse is a force of nature. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Anyway, my dear, we must get
together over the coming holidays. If you're alone for Christmas
dinner, consider yourself invited. Please let me know.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>All my love,</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Edward</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She held the card
wondering if she was indeed called upon, would she take up the cause? Or
would she take that vacation?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-66627151174047642014-04-03T14:06:00.002-04:002014-05-02T13:10:52.635-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy-One<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPa2mdoR7RhK3J9LF7J7bOZ0VTVXBEmEUUKuvimvvJEPB5EW2nlRr4-GFio7t0ZZkt_ORi-HtUO9O8MRhM0zdfKtCOLEjq3MhTluDvdcwE-3VcuXKAvABBAsM3OQgIGA2CM9pVQ/s1600/marbled003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPa2mdoR7RhK3J9LF7J7bOZ0VTVXBEmEUUKuvimvvJEPB5EW2nlRr4-GFio7t0ZZkt_ORi-HtUO9O8MRhM0zdfKtCOLEjq3MhTluDvdcwE-3VcuXKAvABBAsM3OQgIGA2CM9pVQ/s1600/marbled003.jpg" height="200" width="111" /></a>The small coin rose up high above them
flickering with a crescent of reflected light—whether merely
wavering back and forth or fully rotating they couldn't tell in the
dismal street lamp's glow—before reaching its acme of freedom in
the cold December air, a moment that would likely decide its future
before its descent. Heads they would go to <i>Hurleys</i>, tails, to
<i>Brutopia</i>, and if they flubbed the catch, and it dropped to the
slush and snow at their feet, they would go to the <i>Madhatter</i>,
the five cent coin a donation to the distant spring thaw when some
keen-eyed waif would perceive it as a coin of incremental value and
pocket it carefully with its kind. Whether it was the dimness of
their surroundings, the chill in their fingers, or the rowdy
Concordia University students who passed them making a joke about
referees and the Montreal Alouettes, they missed the catch. <i>Madhatter
</i>it was. Crossing the street, they settled their thoughts upon the
warmth of a corner seat, a pitcher of beer, a mound of crispy hot
onion rings, a dish of steaming chicken wings, and the pretty face of
a server who could probably take out an unruly customer with a flick
of her serving tray.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“My stomach's been growling all
afternoon,” Tom Culacino said, bringing a rough-edged onion ring to
his lips. “I don't think I had lunch.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tabarnac, that's what you always
say.” Yves poured beer into their glasses. “Growling all the time
your stomach. It's like a little animal down there. Feed me, feed
me.” They laughed. “Remember that song by Dunc's brother, that
punk anthem with da growling stomach?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm, how can I forget. I think it
etched a little place in my brain forever.” Tom looked to the
scuffed wood floor, and began to tap his foot while recalling the
lyrics. “<i>I don't know, but I have a hunch, day to day's no
poetry. As they say, there's no free lunch, our stomach's are
growling with poverty</i>. It was the repeat of those last five words
over and over that ground itself into the consciousness of the crowd,
their heads bobbing like those plastic novelty drinking
birds.” He selected a chicken wing and held it over the plate as if
contemplating a chess move. “I used to wonder if Gavan's break away
band, <i>The Spliced Off,</i> would have gone anywhere if he hadn't
died.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yves concentrated on the appetizers,
hoping to avoid one of Tom's digressions on the nature of names and
their statistical anomalies.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“There are some lovely multi-syllable
names on the roster of the CBC these days.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yves was dipping and crunching,
munching and sipping. He gave Tom a “hmm.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Pia Chatapati, Ian Hanomansing,
Paolo Pietropaolo, Ann-Marie Mediwake, Martina Fitzgerald, and Anna Maria Tremonti which just gallops along. Such lovely names.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Thomas Culacino works too,” Yves
said, in the hope this would lasso Tom's run away thoughts.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, that does seem familiar.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I wonder where Dunc is?” Yves said
checking his watch. He then took out his smart phone and dialled the
bookshop. Placing a finger in his other ear to overcome the loud
music from the sound system, he began to shake his head. “Just got
the answering machine. Maybe he forgot.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, it's possible. He could be at
home with a glass of wine in one hand, an open book in the other,
Amelia nearby likewise, Hugh at their feet, and a piano sonata
tinkling in the background.” Licking his fingers, Tom looked
towards the door. “Though if he's on his way he'll find us. I tried
to convince him to get a cell phone, but no, he says he doesn't need
one. Too expensive.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I bet he went to Hurleys. He likes
that triangular corner table in the front.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, he likes that corner. Snug as a
bug in a rug.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They looked up as they heard three
young women enter. The three graces stood for a moment, hesitating in
their expensive coats, boots and handbags as if they'd expected an
Alice and Wonderland interior instead of the rather seedy no frills
pub before them. Tom and Yves exchanged looks expecting the women to
turn around and deprive their sad eyes of a welcome sight, but the
trio found a table and ordered pale ales.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With a voice slightly louder than
before, Yves began, “There I was last night, watching les Canadiens
on the tv, and Céline was looking at a magazine on fashion eh, 'Look
at this,' she said, shoving this magazine in my face, 'a handbag that
costs $9,000 dollars.' Tabarnac, a handbag for $9,000! I told Céline
that would cover the cost of that new roof we need. Handbag! Roof!
Crazy.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, but it's all relative. That
kind of money to the movie star is like 90 bucks to us. Milly bought
a new bag recently for about $70 and I thought that was a lot. Her
money though. I told her it was lovely.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“But $9,000 dollars? What did the
designer do? Hire a private jet to fly to the Amazon to kill the
animal for the leather? Then travel to the Himalaya to find the rare
bird for the rare colour to dye the leather? Then get someone to
weave the gold thread to stitch the bag together? A roof is tar
paper, wood, nails, shingles, man hours, blah, blah, blah, profit
added in. Understandable. But a handbag? C'est incroyable.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You forgot the generator and the
portable radio blasting 80's hits to keep the roofers happy.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They laughed and glanced over at the
young women who were talking into each others ears seemingly
oblivious to their loud conversation about handbags and roofers. They
were working their smart phones, their safety lines to the wider
world, and Tom wondered if they were tweeting about their exploratory
excursions into the grottoes and warrens of Montreal's pub life. They
began to take selfies, having fun, smiling, laughing. Youth he
thought, so much more connected and sharing. As a computer geek,
albeit an old one, he felt it was progress. He gnawed on a chicken
wing thinking of his twenty year old self in 1978, a time that had offered the novelty of Walkmans and chaos theory, Fortran punch cards
and fractals, pocket Instamatic cameras and Apple IIs, digital
watches and DRS-80s. The slide rule, ruled, but the future hadn't
come quick enough.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tristan's into shredding now,”
Yves said, changing the subject.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tom dragged himself back from the past.
“Shredding?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yves mimicked the style of guitar
playing by running his left hand fingers quickly up and down an
imaginary fret board. “Like you know, metal guitar, what Randy
Rhoads was doing in the seventies, but faster. Tristan wakes up, eats
his Shreddies and those little Oateo's or whatever for breakfast, and
then he practises the shredding. Sounds like scales to me. Céline
bought him the headphones so he could hear himself, and we don't have
to.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I thought he was into computing?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, yeah, he still wants to be a
geek billionaire, but one who is cool, you know, one who can shred
like his heroes, those oddballs, weird guys with names like
Buckethead, Bumblefoot, and zillions of others. Mon dieu, there's
like eight year olds on the Youtube shredding away like masters.”
He shook his head in astonishment.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, crazy fast times we live in.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
While they continued to diminish their
plates of appetizers, Tom was thinking of the books he liked to read,
postmodern, speculative works, pages thick with rapid, metaphorical
riffs, ones that reminded him of the guitar virtuosity of a Joe
Satriani whose riffs not only impressed, but moved, not only shook,
but stirred. It was all in the emotion funnelled into the slide in
and slide out, the pull off and hammer on, the melodic overlay on the
rhythmic underlay. “I'm sure Tristan will go from scales to adding
some emotion. The rough edges of youth are mellowed with age and
experience aren't they? Look at us?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm, yeah, mellow, like when I
shovel the snow in front of my shop, and I'm fine, but an hour later,
I bend over to pick up a pencil, and bam, there goes my lower back,
eh, sacrifice!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tom laughed. “Yup, I know that
feeling. Surprizing what reaching for a thumbdrive can do to you.”
He looked at his watch. “Maybe we should phone Dunc at home. He's
already a half hour late.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“He's got a lot of books to pack,
but, he as said, he has to do that himself.” Yves withdrew his
phone and began to dial. “One thing you can say about Dunc, he
knows how to pack a box of books.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, but he'll welcome us when the
heavy lifting comes round.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A sacred geometry of soap
bubbles floated above the sink, an emblem of some distant harmony
beyond everyday life. Melisande gently blew the bubbles towards Pavor
who waited with a fresh drying cloth before the wood dish rack, and
he too added his breath to their trajectory and together they watched
their fairy-like progress as they rose and fell towards the floor
between them, attracting the attention of Clio sitting on her
haunches in the act of licking a forearm to wash her face.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I was thinking of a
having a labyrinth walk on the Sunday after the Saturday wedding. I
could make one of my seven circuit birdseed classical labyrinths.
Depends on the weather of course.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“We've walked labyrinths
together in the rain before.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande ran a soapy sponge
around the edge of a plate. “Yes, but I've never created a birdseed
one in the rain. I'd be wet right through. Anyway, perhaps I could
create one at Pavor's friend's art gallery if it has a room big
enough. Easy to sweep up birdseed after.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“True. Nice fit with an
art gallery too.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Walking the labyrinth
would help everyone shed their habitual thinking, reawaken their
centre balance, overcome their self-consciousness and open themselves
to each other more fully. A new beginning for everyone.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It would be wonderful.,”
he said, giving her a little kiss on the top of her head. He dried a
plate with solemn clockwise motions. “I really am glad you asked
Pavor to join us on the day. Hopefully Thérèse will agree.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I hope she's all right.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, I feel responsible
for triggering her involuntary memory. I shouldn't have used the
fictional name Evan Dashmore. Jerome told me it was too close to
David Ashemore, but I couldn't resist the evocative symmetry.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Maybe it's for the best.
Jerome said she was more like herself. Maybe it was just what she
needed.” Handing a bowl to Pavor, she imagined herself watching
them all walk a labyrinth together, but then the field of vision
shifted up and she rose like a soap bubble and looked down on them
walking and could see they were really all walking in closed circles
around each other, circles within circles, no access to each other,
like the rings around some planet. “I had the oddest dream last
night,” she said.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tea with the Queen?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She laughed. “No. I was on
a plane and in front of me was the actor Colin Firth, and beside him
was a woman with a child. I figured they were his family. Then I fell
asleep on the plane and dreamt I was in an absolutely enormous old
house, rooms upon rooms, and a vast open gallery and entrance as
well. I sensed my sister was there but I didn't see her.” Melisande
stopped washing, and taking a towel, dried her hands and rested,
leaning on the counter.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You were dreaming within
a dream?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, I've never dreamt I
was in a dream and then falling into a dream before. Anyway, we
sensed someone was coming home, and Colin Firth showed up and was in
a bad mood. He went straight to the smallest room in the house, a
book-lined study and locked himself in. I went up to the door and
there was a peep hole which allowed me to look in, and he was sitting
at a desk, surrounded by books.” She looked down at Clio who was
now in a yoga position licking her right foot.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Then what happened?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She looked up at him with moist eyes. “I was back in an enormous open gallery, full of
sunlight, and I was twirling around and around and around.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Wow, that's quite a
dream. Colin Firth eh?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dipping another bowl into
the soapy water, she smiled. “The poor actor must be in many
women's dreams. Mr. Darcy and all that.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, right. That reminds
me of my own dream last night. I was in the old public library you
used to work for before McGill. I had two pencils and was trying to
sharpen them on that old-fashioned wall mounted pencil sharpener, but
they kept snapping, grinding improperly. I ended having pencils with
squared ends instead of points, and so I returned to the large high
marble topped circulation desk and began to make a list. I think it
was groceries of all things.” Pavor tilted his head sideways trying
to recall the details, details as elusive as a handful of fog. “All
of a sudden the library was full of people, and the man at the desk,
who seemed to be my double, began to sing opera. No one reacted. I
went to the front door, the aria following me. Next I was in the
metro, but had just missed the train, and, remembering a bus could
get me where I wanted to go, I made my way up and caught the bus, but
it was soon apparent it's route had been changed. I got off and began
walking, thinking of the street I was supposed to be on, a street I
dream about often, have dreamt about for years, one with the same
shops, ones that sell antiques, books, flowers. I've often dreamt of
entering the bookshop and browsing the shelves, picking up and
handling volumes, their colour and titles palpable with felt
existence, but it's a street that doesn't exist in reality, only in
dream, only in my dream memory.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande washed the cutlery
and then rinsed the small handful before giving them to Pavor. Their
dreams seemed divergent, desperate, the beginnings of two
constellations swirling towards each other. “I sometimes dream of
that old library,” she said. “Dreams of finding people wandering
at night when it's supposed to be closed. Anxiety dreams of having
forgotten to lock the front door. I go up to them and tell them
the library is closed, but no one hears me, they sit there
looking through me, they walk around like ghosts. I haven't worked
there for years. Places stay with you. We carry them inside.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Pavor put down his towel and
pulled her towards him hugging her tightly and rocking her back and
forth as the familiar echoes of their dreams dissipated in the
reality around them.<br />
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-52956742972384816372014-03-26T17:59:00.000-04:002014-03-27T10:22:35.618-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Seventy<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8PbD8nVcLLOllCJ9ISpMRc-2KixkdSLZrPHgOjRvCs7LX6R8Sh8s8p0rdxqiaxAyQVCahzRDa7KL3ua3q_SwbuOBQ15pUSRd5A1g-epZaTnt9OasUeFwHa2cD9nGCdoQNwjdlg/s1600/britishlibrary2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8PbD8nVcLLOllCJ9ISpMRc-2KixkdSLZrPHgOjRvCs7LX6R8Sh8s8p0rdxqiaxAyQVCahzRDa7KL3ua3q_SwbuOBQ15pUSRd5A1g-epZaTnt9OasUeFwHa2cD9nGCdoQNwjdlg/s1600/britishlibrary2.jpg" height="200" width="120" /></a>As Melisande Bramente came to the
corner across the street from <i>Café Hermeticum</i>, she noticed
Jerome talking to a roughly clad young man with a knapsack and a dog,
an image which oddly reminded her of a pastoral scene of a squire talking to a hunter and his hound. Not wanting to interrupt their
conversation, she turned and approached a store window display
of trendy winter-clad mannequins, their weightless legs in knee
length leather boots, their heels lightly positioned in a bed of
plastic snowflakes, their long leather coats with fur collars up and
colourful paisley silk scarves stylishly zhushed, and their sightless
eyes gazing over her head, and she remembered how unnerving she had
once felt when she waited in front of such a display window on a
Sunday morning, 6 a.m., not a soul about, the figures had appeared
sad, eerie, and with their stilted animated gestures, ultimately
absurd, prisoners behind glass like tired commuters with frozen
expressions, their large eyes looking beyond the glass as if having
spotted an imagined future in a multidimensional mannequin world.
Seeing her reflection in the glass, she adjusted her scarf and
watched the reflection of Jerome parting company with the young man
and make his way into the Café.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Although she thought the placement of
mirrors added a depth and a positive Feng shui, she could tell there
was a lack of absorbent materials in the decor, all wood chairs,
tables, stone walls and black and white tiled floor. She entered and
was enveloped by the clatter of dishes and the hums, hisses and
whines from the espresso machines, and though the high pitched squeal
of the steaming of milk made her teeth hurt, the babble of voices and
the background jazz music enlivened her with a fresh sense of
otherness. Such a change from her quiet desk at the Religious library
where students padded about in their socks, her co-workers whispered,
and a sneeze was a welcome sign of life.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The heart-shaped surfaces of their soy
lattes jiggled as they carefully approached a table near the window,
a process which reminded Melisande of the egg-and-spoon races of
childhood picnics, stirring up fleeting images of those other church
rituals, three legged race, limbo, horseshoes.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It's good to see you,” Jerome
said, placing his jacket on the back of his chair. “It's been a
while.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande nodded. “Yes, we've all
been busy with our own things.” She sipped her latte and looked out
the window. “It's only Friday December 7<sup>th</sup> and we're
already nesting for the winter. Thanks for meeting me.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“So, how are you and P. K. doing
these days?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“He's fine. We're fine. He sends his
apologies for being so busy with his novel.” She dipped her spoon
in the frothy surface and scooped up a portion to taste. “Over
dinner last night he told me he thinks his characters live more than
he does. They're out and about experiencing life, and he's stuck in
his apartment, at his desk, in front of his computer screen. 'Shadows
against the wall' he said.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“At least he had a taste of Trieste.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, Trieste,” she said somewhat
wistfully. “Oh, we just heard that Tullio, the young man who'd
crashed his motorbike and fell into a coma, is now awake and
recuperating in the house Pavor was staying in. The owner of the
house is his close friend from the same university, and Tullio's
grandmother lives a few houses away, and she'll be bringing him
homemade soups, pastas, and such.” She lifted her shoulders. “So
it all worked out for the best.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's good to hear,” he said,
thinking that Tullio would now be looking at that garden gnome Pavor
had described to him, the gnome he'd written about in the postcard limerick.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The reason I wanted to talk to you
was that I had a visit from Thérèse this week. She was having a
blood test at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and she popped by the
library to see me as she was passing.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Did she tell you?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tell me . . . what?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I proposed. She's accepted.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande smiled and touched his hand.
“That's wonderful news Jerome. I'm really happy to hear that. When
did you ask her?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Two days ago.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah . . . that's wonderful. That's so
wonderful.” Smiling, she continued to rest her hand on his.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“So . . . what did you want to tell
me?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
His marriage proposal had been
unexpected. It complicated her own revelation, and she couldn't think
fast enough to find a substitute. “Ahh . . . well,” she said
sitting back, “as I said, she just dropped by to see me since she
was passing. I was busy, so I asked her to sit at my desk while I
helped a student, and . . . well, she happened to see a page of
Pavor's latest manuscript which I'd been rereading in my spare time,
and when I returned, she was staring ahead with a frozen expression
on her face, her body stiff as if she'd been turned into a tree.
'David Ashemore,' she said. 'I remember now.' And then she got up to
leave. She said she was fine. Just a memory had come back to her.
Nothing to worry about. She had to meet her Mother downtown and it
was nice to see me. She gave me a hug and smiled and was out the
door.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome, his mouth agape, looked across
at her hands cupping her latte for warmth, a whisper of steam rising
from edge of the foam. “What day was that?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tuesday morning. Yes, Tuesday
morning.” She could tell his eyes were looking inwards, searching
the permutations of time to see whether Thérèse's recollection of
David Ashemore might have influenced her decision to accept his hand
in marriage. They sat quietly while the complex rhythms of Charlie
Parker's tenor saxophone overlapped and weaved the silence between
them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I was just concerned, you know, that
. . .Thérèse might have remembered something traumatic. I wanted to
know she was all right.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No, she's . . . she's good, fine.
Actually, she's been more like herself these past few days.” He
sipped his latte and looked out the window. The young man with the
dog had emerged from around the corner and had sat down with his back
to the wall.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Would you consider,” she began,
hoping to shift the conversation away from the past, “making it a
double marriage with us on May 18<sup>th</sup> at the McGill Chapel?
There will be so few people attending. No one from Pavor's side of
the family, too far for his Mother, and only a few from mine. It
would be lovely to have you join us in the ceremony.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Shifting his head to one side, he
looked at her as if he was judging the beauty of a vase or a statue.
“I'll ask Thérèse what she thinks, but I feel she'll go for it.
Sounds good to me. We won't be having many family guests either.
Though I was thinking of a small reception at my friend Pascal's art
gallery, <i>Gallerie d'Art Crépescule.</i> What do you think? Would
that be ok?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sounds like it would fit <i>our</i>
budget. Wine, cheese, nibblies, nothing too formal. Yes, that sounds
just right. Talk to Thérèse and then we'll get together for dinner
sometime. I hope she thinks it's a good idea. It would be lovely for
us all to share the day.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome nodded, then looking past her,
raised his chin and lipped a silent hi to an acquaintance behind her.
“She's been staying with her Mother in Varennes, and writing a few
articles for a small local paper. Her Mother's actually happy we're
getting married. Even to a painter like me.” He smiled broadly.
“She'd like to see Thérèse settle down.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Mrs. Laflamme should feel lucky to
have a future son-in-law like yourself,” she said. staring at
his hands stained with remnant pigments deep in the creases and
whorls of his fingerprints. “How's your painting these days?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He checked his watch. “In a few hours
the portrait I've been working on will be picked up and delivered, so
I'm feeling good. Ready for some of my own work for a change.
Something original I hope. Oh, I almost forgot, Pavor left this CD
booklet at my place.” He pulled it from his coat pocket and placed
it beside her cup. “A local band I dragged him to see on his first
night back from Italy.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<i>Rough Draft.</i> How appropriate.
Two bachelors on a night out eh?” She laughed. “Would they be
good for the reception?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome shook his head. “No, I don't
think so, too loud. The art gallery can pipe in light background
music unless you have something in mind, a jazz combo or a classical
trio.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I guess we can figure that out over
dinner.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Right, good.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Reduced to monosyllables and silence,
they each sipped their coffees and looked out the window at the
street view outlined in the welcome light of the diminishing day.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She wondered, as she looked at the
lengthening shadows across the street, if marrying Pavor would soften
his protective shell, loosen the stiffness at the corner of his eyes,
deepen his vulnerability and open him to writing about the death of
his wife and child. She could see them walking a labyrinth together,
his tall figure before her taking each step slowly as if learning to
walk, step after step, occasionally loosing balance, feeling dizzy,
feeling lost. Pausing, she too would pause, and then follow him on to
the centre.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He could see the dog resting his chin
on the young man's knee, and a hand held out as a woman passed. It
was going to be a cold winter he thought. Why didn't Thérèse tell
him about her recollection? Now he would have to wait. He couldn't
ask. Not now. If she wanted to let him know, she would. He would hold
her tighter when she stayed with him on the weekend. Kiss her more
passionately. Listen to her more attentively. He'd paint her
portrait. A cozy setting, sitting by the window reading a book. Late
afternoon shadow and light. Domestic scene, Saturday, December 8<sup>th</sup>,
2012.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Jacques Futrelle,” he
said quietly to himself, leaning back against the bookshelves in the
Sir Gawain section of the book stacks. He opened the book in the
middle and gently snapped it shut sending a fine spray of dust into
the air which hovered briefly before descending like a whale's
exhalation to the taped and labeled boxes near his feet. He'd
finished boxing the F's, all the Farjeons, Farnols, Farrells,
Faulkners, Feinsteins, Feurbachs, Ffordes, Fieldings, Fitzgeralds,
Flauberts, Flemings, Fords, Forresters, Forsters, Forsyths,
Foucaults, Fowles, Freuds, Froudes, Fryes and Fuentes and others in
between, but a remnant of Futrelles remained. A dilemma: start a new
box, or add them to the beginning of the G's? Perhaps it was a sign.
He'd always wanted to read the work of this author. <i>The Chase of
the Golden Plate</i> by Jacques Futrelle. Might as well start here he
thought. He flipped a few pages and read the dedication: <i>To three
woman I love: Fama, and Mazie, and Berta. </i>He
turned to the first chapter and read the first sentence:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Cardinal Richelieu and
the Mikado stepped out on a narrow balcony overlooking the entrance
to Seven Oaks, lighted their cigarettes and stood idly watching the
throng as it poured up the wide marble steps.</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Perfect
escape reading he thought. He left the Futrelles on the shelf and
looked towards the G's, his eyes skipping from Gaddis to Garcia
Marquez, Garnett to Gaskell, Gass to Grass, Gernsback to Gibson, and
then he slowly scanned the Gissings, Goddens, Godwins, Gogols,
Goldings and Greenes. An empty box awaited, but he felt lightheaded,
short of breath. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his eyes. Dust, he
thought, he just needed some fresh air. He selected a handful of
books and bending down to place them in the box, he noticed the
works of Robert Graves, specifically <i>The White Goddess</i> in a
pale green Faber & Faber paperback edition. Slipping it out from
between the author's <i>Watch the North Wind Rise</i> and <i>New
Collected Poems</i>, he fanned the pages and breathed in the special
scent of the paper and ink thinking of his first reading of the book
when younger, the years when he was deep in the works of comparative
mythology, enlivened by the books and lectures of Joseph Campbell,
and seeking out authors in the Bollingen series, Bachofen, Eliade,
Jung, Kerényi, Newman. Feeling a tightness in his chest, and
overcome by a sense of claustrophobia, he sought out the narrow red
floral runner rug in the central aisle between the stacks, a carpet
that used to be attached to the stairs in his parent's home, a
well-worn carpet upon which he used to sit, listening, thinking,
following the patterns with his eyes and his fingers. Unsteady on his
feet he looked towards the blind porcelain angel holding the open
book in her out stretched arms, and thought he saw the great scholar
of comparative mythology standing there as if guiding him on a museum
tour, one hand in his tweed jacket pocket, the other gesturing
towards the angel, his throaty voice discussing the lost powers of
the pagan Goddesses. Nausea overcame him. He collapsed on the carpet,
the bookshelves spinning around him with their gilt bindings a
colourful blur. Was he suffering from an aneurysm like his Mother? A
ringing in his ears and a darkness pressed down upon him.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He
opened his eyes and he was on the beach once again, the beach where
as a child he'd stubbed his toe on the sandstone rock with its
perfect hole. He looked down and the book he'd held in his hand was
now the lost amulet. Bringing it up to his eye, rough stone against
his smooth skin, he scanned the horizon. A lyric from his earliest
adolescent attempts at songwriting passed through his mind, <i>Let
your summers' breeze take me by the hand</i> . . . a full moon seemed
to hover over the horizon, blindingly bright through the weathered
orifice, bright as the beginning of light at the birth of the u . n .
. i</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
phone rang. After the seventh ring, the old-fashioned answering
machine's message played in the silence of the bookshop: “You've
reached Lafcadio & Co. Bookshop. If I can't find it, Lafcadio
can. Please leave your message after the beep and we'll get back to
you. Thank you. Vous avez bien fait le numero pour Librarie Lafcadio
& Co., s'il vous plaìt, laissez votre message après la
tonnalité. Merci.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hello,
Mr. Strand. My name is Jonathan Landgrave of <i>Landgrave &
Landgrave, Notaries</i>. I represent a client who is currently
involved in the condominium development. My client was unaware of
your bookshop on the premises, thinking it was occupied solely by the
cordage business. It's also been drawn to his attention, that you
were of service to him many years ago in preparing a special
catalogue of a book collection in his possession. With this in mind,
he would like to extend his hand in in a gesture of assistance. If
you are interested in selling all or a portion of the stock of both
businesses, he would be pleased to acquire them at the going rate. If
you could arrange for a catalogue overview of your stock in both
businesses, their estimated retail values, and what you would
consider a reasonable purchase price, we could meet at my office to
discuss the proposition in detail. We look forward to hearing from
you. You can reach me at this num . . . .”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande
sat at her desk rummaging in her purse for her lemon lavender lip
balm. Applying it, she noticed Pavor's CD booklet Jerome had given to
her. Out of curiosity, she looked <i>Rough Draft</i> up on Google,
and finding numerous bands with the name, narrowed her search by
adding 'Montreal.' Finding the webpage, she clicked on the link and
up popped a black and white site designed with letters in different
fonts and scripts with the band's name across the top in bold with a
treble clef in place of the letter G. Headers beneath listed <i>News,
Tour, Store, Music, Photos, Lyrics, Connect,</i> and along one side,
all the social media buttons. She clicked on photos and looked at
pictures of the band performing at <i>Le Bar Prufrock</i> last month.
The musicians seemed very young. She didn't see Pavor or Jerome
amongst the attendees, but she did recognize Tom Culacino, Duncan's
friend who worked down the street in the science building. Clicking
on<i> Music</i> she read the list of songs from their eponymous
album:
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Thread
of Love</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>S&M.</i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Hold
Me</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Mary
Mad Maud</i></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Phone
Me Persephone</i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Symbiotic
Syntax</i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Merry
Mary Marry Me</i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Daphne's
Laurel</i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Azure
Eyelash </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Muse
in a Man's World. </i>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She was
about to click on the last song when Manon, her co-worker
approached. She closed the window and returned to her database.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Did I
catch you looking at wedding dresses?” Manon asked, with a wink.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, coupable.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome
was surprised to see both Bartholomew and Thaddeus at his door. He
noticed the latter was holding a neatly folded Hudson Bay blanket as
if it was an offering. For a brief moment, the thought crossed his
mind the blanket was really for him, something to wrap his dead body
in as payment for the unexpected tryst with Lucrezia, their employer's wife.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Come
in, come in. Good to see you guys again. How are you doing?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They
ignored the question, their eyes levelled at the fine white cardboard
box with the dimensions of a painting. “Is this it?” Bartholomew
asked pointing to the box.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It
is. I've packed it well so there shouldn't be a problem with transport. It's surrounded in a protective veil of fabric cushioned with styrofoam
edges and housed in this special cardboard box I made for it. I have a large plastic bag you can put it in it you like.
Will it be going to a framer first?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No,
they have an antique frame waiting. Mr. Landgrave asked me to give
you this envelope. The final payment. And our employers would like to
thank you for your excellent work.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Thank you. Just doing my job. I hope they like it.” Jerome sensed they were both more
abrupt and business-like in their manner towards him, making him
wonder if Thaddeus had disclosed to his brother the details of his
having dropped Lucrezia off here a few weeks back. He held the door
open. “Oh, Bartholomew, I just wanted to let you know I'm
getting married in the spring.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thaddeus
had already descended the outer staircase and was opening the trunk
of the car, and his twin brother, holding the painting in one hand, turned
around on the outdoor landing, smiled, and said, “Congratulations.
When's the big day?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh,
it's not for awhile. May 18<sup>th</sup> at the McGill University
Chapel. We'll be having a small reception at my friend's art gallery
after. We'd be pleased if you would all join us.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Bartholomew
nodded his head. “Gotcha. I'll pass it on. Take care of yourself
Jerome.” And with that, he made his way down
the stairs and carefully placed the box in the trunk on top of the soft blanket. Jerome waited
on the stoop. Bartholomew raised his arm in a farewell gesture before
closing the passenger door, and they drove off. He wondered if he'd
ever see any of them again.<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-63015166924694520212014-03-15T14:01:00.000-04:002014-03-19T12:21:12.073-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Sixty-Nine<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex Under Glass – Part Seven</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-T8BiZA3QUfO9ml7z22ikIvVZ0euV4BOFeaTV2el-DvWKD_V61Ko7Na4kB9-pfkXunrGBHytrKoh5pj92NOvOWnAobypAYLCKMYWmqY4iOhSsbMhDg_gPLnkMEcyhloYvjpLOyQ/s1600/marbled10d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-T8BiZA3QUfO9ml7z22ikIvVZ0euV4BOFeaTV2el-DvWKD_V61Ko7Na4kB9-pfkXunrGBHytrKoh5pj92NOvOWnAobypAYLCKMYWmqY4iOhSsbMhDg_gPLnkMEcyhloYvjpLOyQ/s1600/marbled10d.jpg" height="200" width="177" /></a>Sitting on the black leather banquette
framed in bronze upholstery tacks, Evan Dashmore, his legs urbanely
crossed, looked up from the dark marble table with its fingers of phantom white, one swirling galaxy of many, and
rested his eyes on the high row of windows facing the street, the
glass reflecting the interior of the Café with its cascading
chandeliers, white walls accented with gold, milk chocolate coloured
wooden panels, vertical light sconces, mirrors, tables, customers,
and themselves, shapes of abstract darkness within the glow of the
golden warmth. He let his eyes dis-focus to capture the widest angles
and he began to feel as if he was part of some fantastic
confectionery in the imagination of Alphonse Mucha. An unusually
early snow had begun to fall, large flakes slowly descending to the sound of<i> Cars and Girls</i> by Prefab Sprout issuing quietly from the hidden speakers around them.
There was a transparency to the evening, as if the snow was falling
within. He remained silent, feeling that any words would fail. Beside
him, Rex was in the final stages of diminishing his slice of
chocolate cheese cake, a methodical process, having worked his way
from the point of the isosceles triangle slice towards the crust-less
edge as if preoccupied with some Pythagorean conundrum. He felt he
was with a younger, less sophisticated brother. In a way, he was, but
one whom he could imagine excusing himself to go to he men's room
where he would find a package left by an accomplice, a revolver, or a
syringe with a deadly substance.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I forgot to ask how your hotel room
was,” Evan managed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Fine,” Rex replied, tapping his foot, wiping his
lips with the soft napkin. “Very nice.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I tend to rate hotels by their
soaps. There are the cheap dives that provide one piece of soap the
size and shape of a tea biscuit, and just as absorbent. The first
suds-less sweep up the arm and it breaks in two. Zero star. Hotels
with a spa treatment equivalent would be the five stars.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yeah, I've been to some of those
too, the zero stars. Depressing as hell. Driving back from Las Vegas
once, I remember a place that had a diner attached with a menu
offering items like, <i>Big Foot Club Sandwich</i>, and <i>Fettuccine
Sasquatch</i>.” He turned sideways to look at Evan. “You don't
want to know.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I guess Alfredo met his match.”
Evan smiled and then sipped his coffee and looked at the pretty
waitress pass by. “I imagine many of those small motels have
vanished, the big chains having filled their place with generic and
consistent drabness. Quirkiness and eccentricity outmoded with safety
and sameness.” He smiled at the waitress as she retraced her steps,
her hands laden with spent offerings. “Though I bet you could still
come across a few on forgotten roads, at the edges of forgotten
towns, on the fringes of forgotten dreams: <i>Avalon Inn . . .
Shambhala Motel . . . Seventh Heaven Cottages</i>. Might make a good
road trip. And a book too. <i>In Search of Lost Motels,</i> or
<i>Remembrance of Motels Past</i> by . . . Sybille Roust.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex began to preoccupy himself with his
smart phone oblivious to the references.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Are you on that intravenous drip
known as Twitter?” Evan asked looking over his shoulder at Rex.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Raising his chin briefly as if from the
distraction of a fly, Rex shook his head. “No, though my girlfriend
is. I'm just checking her messages. She's booked a Caribbean cruise,
a special one devoted to dance party music. The best Dj's doing their
thing. Looks like we'll soon be trancing and dancing to the edge of
the horizon.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How horrible Evan thought. He imagined
himself as an albatross flying silently towards the cruise ship, the
bright lights and reverberations echoing out across the water, the
beat of the music in sync with the rhythm of the engines, human forms
moving in unison, jumping, gyrating, multicoloured light sticks
wavering in the air above them, the wake of the ship like a wound slowly healing. It seemed as alien as a space ship.
He flew off thinking of the medieval ship of fools colliding with
this literal ship of fools at the horizon's edge, an image which brought back to
him his childhood pastime of making small wooden boats with his
friend Fergus, boats they would construct at his friend's basement
work table, all coping saws and cotter pins, balsa woods and heavy twines, bench vices and miter boxes, pin size nails and glutunous glues, hand drills and ball-peen hammers, button headed slot screws and flat headed Philips screws, (the ones that made them think of cartoon eyes punched out by Popeye the sailor man) and the sublime odours and feel of sawdust. They used to secretly scale the stairs to the second floor
bathroom, careful not to disturb Fergus's father in his cork-lined
study where mysterious academic studies were being pursued, and fill the tub halfway and float their sail boats on their
pretend ocean, colliding them with their own God-like swells, where
the circumference of the bath had been their porcelain horizon, one
that shrank as the water ever so imperceptibly diminished, the rubber
stopper relenting to the pressure.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and
everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned,” Evan quoted
absentmindedly, almost to himself.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex pocketed his smart phone and looked
at Evan wondering what he was talking about. “It'll be fun. Meet
new people, make new connections. Drink, dance, eat, forget the
world. No shuffleboard and badminton like in your day.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Evan laughed. “Yes, I was lucky they
ran out of tickets for the Titanic.” He finished his coffee
imagining himself seated in the grand saloon of the unsinkable
vessel, ready to have a final cigarette outside with John J. Astor.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I'm just going to find the men's
room,” Rex said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Evan nodded. One for the lifeboats he
thought as he watched Rex walk away. Badminton? On the Titanic?
Possible, but unlikely. Badminton. Battledore and Shuttlecock of
yore. Was it Robert Southey or Leigh Hunt? He always confused them
somehow. Yes, he remembered now, it was Hunt, he'd been imprisoned
for libel and one of his many visitors had been Jeremy Bentham who'd
found him playing battledore and shuttlecock. He visualized the poet
and the philosopher batting the birdie back and forth between
interrogative and declarative sentences, the intuitive imaginative
poet and essayist, and the empirical philosopher. Hunt used to walk
around his prison confines with his young son in hand, pretending
they were in the countryside or on the busy streets of London.
Excursions in imagination. Like coming across a lighthouse in the
desert. There was another case like that he thought. In Kierkegaard's
works. His pseudonymous author, Johannes Climacus, had a father
unwilling to accompany his son out of doors, but would take his hand
and lead him around the room, describing the wonders to be found,
market stalls, conversations with passers by, sounds, smells, sights. Divine imagination. The centrifugal imaginings of an introvert. So different
from the empirical, centripetal demands of the extrovert. He thought
of Napoleon in the latter position, the arranger of geography, the
mapmaker of homelands. Evan looked up to the plaster details on the
ceiling thinking how ironic it was that Napoleon had died in his bed
like a scoundrel, poisoned by the wallpaper at the age of forty-five,
while Kierkegaard had passed away peacefully at forty-two, in the
hospital, joking about acquiring wings and, like an angel, singing
from the clouds.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Nice bathrooms,” Rex said as he
slid back in his seat.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Evan thought he should finally discuss
Vernon Smythe and his modest proposal. “Don't you find it unusual that
Vernon would send you all this way just to retrieve a thumb drive,
this dongle hanging from my waistcoat?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex looked surprised. “I tried not to
think about the job itself. Money talked. I listened.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, but now you know the details
concerning my past dealings with Vernon, and the tragedy of the young
man who had an affair with his wife and paid the price.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What's your point?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It's likely Vernon is taking out two
birds with one stone. If something were to happen to one of us here
in Prague, the other would be seen as responsible. Two birds, one
stone.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You're suggesting this is a setup?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“He could have hired a third man to
take you out at the hotel. Evidence would link you with me, and
presto, Evan Dashmore, alias Harris, suspected of murder. Vice versa
as well.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex's complexion seemed to acquire a
yellowish pallor. “What do you suggest?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, I'm sure my wife wouldn't mind
a house guest for one night. We could set you up in the spare room.
You're not allergic to cats I hope.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You're married?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, she's a professor of economics
at the university. I'm also an occasional lecturer there with a
course on philosophy and history. There can be life after
Vernon. Have hope. Although, be warned, it's a world just as rife
with injustice. The wrong people hire the wrong people, the best are
overlooked, office politics pepper the private and public sectors and
everyone sneezes. Hard work and loyalty doesn't always pay off. The
academic world seems especially riven with such dysfunction. Anyway,
I suggest you rearrange your flight home. Fly to Amsterdam, spend a
few days, and then catch a flight to Toronto.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“But I left my car at the airport in
Montreal.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, that's a complication. Hmm.
Well, fly to Montreal then, but give your car the once over. Tomorrow
we'll mail this thumb drive to Vernon with a note in your hand. If
he looks at the files on the drive, it will activate code to monitor
his computer from here. Worth a try.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“How can I trust you? Maybe your
wife's the third man.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Evan's laughter aroused glances of
reproach from a few of the other customers. “Well, she certainly
has the mind of three men. Relax. I've moved on as I've told you.
Intrigue and secrets are like a cancer. They'll destroy your life.
You're still young. Make a new start.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As Rex played with the unusually shaped
sugar packet, shifting it round and round between finger and thumb
like worry beads, Evan was thinking of scenes from Carol Reed's film
<i>The Third Man.</i> He closed his eyes and rested his head and
watched the black and white images flit by. The chase scenes in the
sewers from the end of the movie always came first, flashing lights,
distorted shadows, echoes of the pursuit, the feet running on wet
brick, the shouting voices resounding off the claustrophobic
convexity of their surroundings. Then the increasing series of Dutch
angle shots and large shadows cast like an Egyptian shadow play of
the dead. Grandiose apartment interiors, grand spiral
staircases, characters with poker faces, crumbling exteriors, and
poor, innocent hayseed author, Holly Martins gradually loosing his
energy and vigour, rendered off kilter, out of place, alienated and
ultimately disillusioned with the revelations of the miserable nature
of man. Still images passed through his mind: the cat, as innocent
and naive as Martins, discovering Harry Lime, its owner, in the
shadows; Dr. Winkel (Vinkel!) in his apartment; Baron Kurtz with a dog so small, the rats in the sewers beneath their feet would make of it a meal; Calloway and Paine and their stiff
upper lips; Crabbin, his propaganda front and his alluring and mysterious assistant; Lime
on the Ferris wheel, all dots and cuckoo clocks, and the beautiful
Anna Schmidt in the final long shot, walking towards, and past
Martins, leaves falling from ruined trees, the zither playing her
out.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What about my things at the hotel?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Aroused from his interior film, Evan
pursed his lips and then asked him what he'd left there.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, not much. An overnight bag
really. Spare set of clothes, shoes, shaving kit.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I'll drive you over in the morning
before checkout and cover your back.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Thanks,” Rex said. “So, you have
cats?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Evan had risen and was adjusting his
scarf. “Annika and Zina. They're very friendly. Though they might
scratch at your door at six in the morning.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Do you live far?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It's the Vinohrady neighbourhood
south east of here. Don't worry, I'll pay for the ride.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As they stood on the corner smoking
their cigarettes waiting for their taxi, Evan wondered if Rex was
ready for a new life. “You know that Vernon will throw his weight
around. The character assassination techniques you've taught will
come back to haunt you. Slander, traducement, fabrication, acoustic
weapons. If you try for regular employment he'll be there with a word
in the ear or a favour offered, and it'll be, <i>I'm sorry Mr.
Packard, we chose someone else for the job. </i>That's
what happened to the poor bugger who slept with his wife.<i>
</i>Ruined.” He coughed and
drew his collar up around his neck. “It's a fact of life that if
you don't have an iron in the fire, people will hit you with theirs.
Change your name. Try to get on with life.” His advice seemed as
weak as a two day old tea bag.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Whisked away from the bright lights of
the <i>Kavarna Obecni dum</i>, and a few words in Czech between Evan and
the driver about the snow flakes, and they settled back in their seats
and relaxed, fatigue beginning to overcome them. Mozart's <i>Laudate
Dominum</i> from his <i>Vespers</i> issued softly from the car
speakers easing their nerves with its soothing melismatic voicings,
making Evan think of Brahms's <i>Alto Rhapsody, </i>the
words <i>Aber abseits wer ist's? </i>rising
to the surface of his thoughts.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After the short Mozart piece had
finished, Evan opened his eyes and looked out at the narrow streets
thinking how malleable life could be, how many springs one could
drink from, how many reflections one could see on the surface of the
waters. He cleared his throat and looked over at Rex who was staring
listlessly out of the window. “There's historical precedent for
people changing their names,” Evan began, the eyes of the driver
scanning him in the rear view mirror. “You've heard of Lawrence of
Arabia?” Rex said he'd seen the movie. “T. E. Lawrence was his
birth name. Thomas Edward Lawrence. But his father's true surname was
Chapman, and he was from a titled Anglo-Irish family. He had a wife
and three daughters, and then he began a liaison with a young
Scottish maid and a child was born.” The driver nodded his head
slowly as if he'd heard the story of his life. “Well, his wife
discovered the affair. But what did Chapman do? Did he follow upper
class protocol and send the maid off to Scotland with a stipend? No,
a lover and his lass, he left behind his wealth, his good name, his
title, and scuttled around the fringes of English society trying to
avoid the stigma of recognition. He adopted the name of Lawrence and
his new wife gave birth to five boys in all.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex wondered how this story could shed
light on his future.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Somehow, T. E. Lawrence discovered
this family secret when he was young and he ended up creating fake
names himself. After his glory and failure in the Middle East, he
tried to enlist as a private in the army under a different name. He
also translated and had published Homer's <i>Odyssey</i> using the
name of Shaw. He was riddled with personas. His life was a veritable
shattered mirror.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex closed his eyes. His real name,
Roger Parker, seemed more of an alias to him now than Rex Packard.
Was he already a shattered mirror?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Then there was the elder brother of
Napoleon. The one who'd been made the King of Spain,” Evan
continued, a song loop spinning briefly round his memory. “When
Bonaparte's empire crumbled, his elder brother and family escaped to
Switzerland with the crown jewels. Literally. Not feeling at ease in
Europe, worried he'd be assassinated, he buried half his treasure on
the land of the Swiss estate, and with his trusty secretary, Louis,
made his way to America under an assumed name. And once there, began
a new life under another assumed name and used the treasure to live
the grand life in Bordertown, New Jersey. A Corsican in New Jersey.
Sounds like a movie.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“New Jersey? You kidding me?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No, not at all. His daughters
followed him to America but his wife remained in Switzerland. I
believe he had an American mistress who gave birth to a child.
America at the time was full of radical thinkers and scoundrels.
Bonaparte tried to escape to America before being sent to Elba.
Imagine Napoleon Bonaparte in New Jersey or New York. The danger of
political unrest, the foment of a rebellion in Lower Canada with their sensitive French/English problems at the time. His ultimate home on St. Helena, remote and inhospitable, was
necessary, for all considered. Millions of lives ruined, currencies
devalued, economies in collapse, such were some of the effects of the
man and his dreams.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The taxi driver banged the steering
wheel lightly, and looking over his shoulder towards Evan, said
“Stalin and Hitler too, eh, bastards all of them.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rex and Evan, surprised, nodded in
agreement, “Yes, yes, bastards all of them.” They exchanged looks
and nods between the driver in the rear view mirror and themselves, a
triangulation of shared sentiment in a small space. It felt good.
Cathartic.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Melisande finished her apple
and put Pavor's work in progress back into the manila envelope. She
wasn't sure where he was going with his Rex and Evan characters. She
felt his style had changed. Less hard-boiled than he used to be. Less
Scandinavian noir. The character of Evan Dashmore had shifted the
narrative. She generally read his work and helped him rewrite an
awkward phrase, catch spelling mistakes which he was prone to,
suggest a name, and bemoan the fact he'd killed off a sympathetic
character she wanted to hear more from, but she was unsure of what to
say about these preliminary chapters of Rex Under Glass. Very good
she would say. I want to hear more. She liked the word melismatic, so close to Melisande. Almost a secret reference. She'd be positive, supportive.
She wasn't sure what his editor would think though. She wasn't sure.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-21796007629811565782014-03-07T13:36:00.002-05:002014-03-08T13:26:57.131-05:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Sixty-Eight<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBkBUITMsz2_Mox7LlkM0fIktzygifBDcFa8cjjMN-fGy-oXOJab4kXV_YBJIUyaVxs2APeJH4ln7GGitX3H10nEEKJnyKRycx9IjgOxemZjJg3hdWws3HVdi8TCtA8kFllXCzIQ/s1600/marbled019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBkBUITMsz2_Mox7LlkM0fIktzygifBDcFa8cjjMN-fGy-oXOJab4kXV_YBJIUyaVxs2APeJH4ln7GGitX3H10nEEKJnyKRycx9IjgOxemZjJg3hdWws3HVdi8TCtA8kFllXCzIQ/s1600/marbled019.jpg" height="194" width="200" /></a>Awaking to find her arm asleep, she
turned her body sideways feeling the full weight of the limb roll
onto the bedspread. Slowly the arm regained blood flow, the painless
cramp eased, and the tingling nerve endings resonated and faded like
a glissando of harp strings. She quietly moaned not so much for the
feeling returning to her fingers, as to the recollection of her
nightmare, an occasional recurrence, a variation on a theme. She was
once more back at her parent's third floor flat in Lachine. She was in a developing state of panic realizing she had a final test that evening
for her last university course, a course to complete her business degree, and
she hadn't prepared. In her efforts to locate her books and papers,
she was thwarted by her parents who happened to be sitting on them,
or inadvertently hiding them by their position. She sighed. At
forty-eight years of age, and twenty-five years since she'd finished
her degree, still this nightmare of anxiety arose from time to time,
and so real that in that semi-awake state she was actually convinced
she still had a course to finish, a degree to complete. She rolled
onto her back and stared at the high plaster ceiling thinking of her
parents and the working class poverty she'd escaped. Her father, his
teeth in the glass beside the bed—the poor man's aquarium—sleeping
off a night of beer drinking and hockey viewing with his
“associates” down at the brasserie, spending his factory
paychecks on beer, cigarettes and betting on les Canadiens and the
occasional flutter on the sulkies at Blue Bonnets during the summers.
Her mother ensconced on the flowered couch before her beloved glossy
veneered television cabinet with the pot of dusty dried flowers on
top, fully immersed in the lives of her family, those characters on
her favourite soap operas, all those<i> forevers</i> and <i>tomorrows
</i>of dramatic fantasy<i>.
</i>Which ones did she watch? The names came back to her like the
memories of undesirable relatives: <i>As the World Turns, The Guiding
Light, All My Children, Another World, Search For Tomorrow. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She looked over to the sleek dark
digital clock and saw it was 6:45 a. m., the usual time of Declan's
rising. But he was in New York with Harry, at the proverbial <i>round
of meetings.</i> She was alone in their Old Montreal condominium and
glad of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the kitchen she prepared her morning
health shake and stretched her back and neck between sips. Her hips
were sore. Did they need to replace the expensive mattress already?
The autumn issue of <i>Vogue,</i>
thick as a patio stone, lay on the smooth granite eating area;
it was the magazine issue she looked forward to each year, an issue
she'd advance through 150 pages of air-brushed fantasy advertisements
before reaching the hidden table of contents, the models staring back
at her as if she were looking at herself in the mirror, eye contact
making for a unification of the abstract, yes, this is you in the
<i>Valentino, Dior, Versace, Christian LaCroix, Donna Karan, Stella
McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Chanel.</i> She'd found it useless to
bookmark pages by turning the top corners down, so she just tore the
pages out and slipped them in at the end of the magazine for future
reference. Once finished, she left a sticky note on it for Louise,
their in-town housekeeper, to take. How it ended up making its way to
Louise's daughter and into scrap books and collages, she didn't know,
but such was the trajectory of the magazine's life, ending, no doubt,
in the recycling bin. So much money and creative effort spent, and
yet, so ephemeral. But the influences remained, money had been spent,
faces had been seen, names had been recognized, writers had been
read, charmed lives had been revealed, styles had been spun, shaken,
and stirred. The ripples of influence would diminish with time while
the inherent energies of the physical object would be recycled. Much
like human existence she thought.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She made her way down the hallway to
the large-windowed front rooms, looking at the dark framed
photographs on the wall as she passed, photographs taken by Thaddeus
of Declan and Harry with accomplished achievers: Guy Laliberté, Paul
Allen, Richard Branson, Dennis Tito. What was it with self-made men and women, she wondered? She sensed they shared a certain continuity like veins of gold running through bedrock—if gold ran through bedrock. They also reminded her of bespoke suits, everything made to measure, unique. She stopped and looked at Mr.
Tito's large smooth head and his sharp blue eyes and felt he exuded
enormous foresight and boundless energy. Declan had a touch of that
too, but not as much. Declan had said to her that if he'd had Dennis
Tito's analytical genius, he too would be a billionaire space tourist
planning on sending a male and a female to Mars, but as it was, he
was sending people home to their condominiums and their deluxe
vacation homes in exotic locales. Such was life. Declan had described
to her how Dennis Tito had used quantitative analytics to estimate
the trajectories of space probes for the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, and
had later applied similar techniques to investment markets to become
the billionaire he was today, “from orbits to markets,” Declan
had said, “a genius at applying mathematics and computers to
estimate risk and outcome.” Random variables, probability
distributions, algorithmic trading, statistical arbitrage, the terms
spun around her mind like space debris. She liked to keep up with the
latest in high finance and every so often regretted not pursuing a
Masters degree, but, having met Declan at an Alumni party, her orbit
had been drawn towards his. Analytics seemed so fastidious, precise, conclusive. What about instinct she wondered? What about human nature? She looked at
Harry and remembered how Declan had told her that when
Harry, a young black kid growing up with him amongst tough white kids
in Point St. Charles, had encountered racism, he calmly told his
offenders that racism was a hereditary disease, and they had better
see a doctor. Smart and tough.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Embraced by a compliment of patterned
cushions on the cream coloured sofa, she rested her outstretched
calves on the ottoman/cocktail table and looked down at the magazines
displayed like a winning poker hand, <i>The Economist, Bloomberg
Markets, AAII Journal, Fortune, Architectural Digest. </i>Looking
towards the living room windows, a trinity of nineteenth century high
arched design, she could see dawn had begun to etch the details of
the elaborate stone facade of the building across the street. It was
at moments like these, moments of quiet stillness, that she thought
she must have been here a hundred years ago, and all the people in
her life had been involved in that distant life as well, in different
roles, names, professions. She stretched her arms above her head and
yawned deliciously with involuntary gasps of her body's voice. Or was it really just due to the
romantic suspense novels she liked to read when she was younger, and
still resorted to on occasions when the arid and prosaic realities
of life lowered the temperature of her emotions? The conflicting
thoughts seemed intertwined like a strand of DNA. Strand. Duncan
Strand. She would have to wait until Friday to discuss the Duncan
Strand situation with Declan. Perhaps he could buy the stock of both
businesses outright and set up a library in the future condominium,
and the rope, well, sell it off to one of his connections in the
Caribbean. That could help the bookseller reset his life.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What would she do with such a chance?
Go back to school? Begin her own real estate company? She curled and
stretched her toes, the fine delicate bones cracked in the dry air
like the sound of wood burning in a fireplace,
and her toenails, shimmering like nacreous pearls, reminded
her of Alicia, their beach loving daughter in California, their Venus
rising from the scallop shell. She hoped she wasn't being foolish
like her mother. A fling with a painter? She shook her head. Had she dramatized a scene from one of those romantic suspense novels, or reenacted an episode of a past life? She would phone Alicia later to check on her and wish her luck in her
coming exams. Pre-med had been one of her own teenage dreams, a life
as a doctor, stethoscope around her neck, crisp blue blouse beneath
the white jacket, but the business degree had been the economical and
obtainable option. Wasn't California rife with temptation. the
bastion of the drug and sex trade? She looked at the clock on the
sideboard to see it was now 7:20 a. m., much too early to phone the
west coast. Alicia might have been up late studying, much like her
own late nights when a student at college and university. She
shivered as she recalled the days when a few of her friends had
finished high school and had begun working at low paying secretarial
and sales jobs and they would try to get her to come out with them on
the weekends to the discotheques downtown and the seedy bars attached to the cheap motels on St.
Jacques Street, places where dancing, drugs and abusive males were
like so many facets of the disco ball blinding them to reality, bars
that she'd called compounds of dangerous elements, the arsenic, lead,
plutonium and mercury that would ruin their lives. Thank God she
hadn't fallen into that darkness of early pregnancy, abandonment,
drug use, poverty. There, but for the grace of . . . something goes
Kathleen O'Connor. God? Common sense? Self-belief? Self-respect? Her
real name seemed so foreign to her now. Kathleen O'Connor. She'd left
it behind like a theatre progamme on a threadbare plush crimson
chair. No Facebook for her. Her father was deceased; her mother,
suffering with Alzheimer's, was in an old age facility; and a brother who
left home at sixteen, whereabouts unknown—she often wondered what
became of him: a roughneck on an Alberta oil rig? A longhaul trucker
down through the Midwest? A Casino sweeper? A grease monkey in a gas
station that still had one of those rubber tube ringers cars drive
over when they pull up to the gas pumps? A grifter moving across the
continent? Drug addict? Convict? Dead? She liked to think he was
living in suburbia with a wife, two kids and a dog, a new pick-up
truck and car in the driveway beneath one of those adjustable
basketball hoops, and maybe a trampoline in the backyard. He was the
wildcard that might be flung across the table at her one day, but for
now, Alicia was the future. Everything behind her, stepping stones
out of the shadows.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They'd decided to bring Alicia up
without organized religion, offering her a broader spirituality, a more
holistic view of life, like the airing of a fusty old room. She
herself, however, still had a weakness for the Virgin Mary, with the <i>Ave
Maria</i>, the <i>Angelic Salutation</i> at the ready, in a whisper,
under breath. She could see the blessed Virgin full of grace looking down on her,
the Goddess subsumed. Better than the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost she thought. A woman to confide in, to understand. I have
sinned, forgive me. A moment of passion, of weakness.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Roused by her sense of guilt over
Jerome, she thought that she should ask Declan to increase the amount
of the scholarship they had set up, one that helped promising
students without financial means. Friday would be a day of requests
she thought. She would prepare a special fish dinner. One of Declan's
favourite.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Duncan, Duncan, wake up,”
Amelia said, shaking his right shoulder.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Agghh, what, what?”
Duncan muttered. He breathed in deeply and turned onto his back, the
tension in his body eased as he fully awoke from a dreamscape. “Sorry
. . . oh my god, bad dream." He licked his dry lips and felt like he'd just come up for air and was now floating on a water surface. "How bizarre. I was in my parent's home,
everyone was there, you were there too. There was a big commotion
over the plans to run a railway track between our neighbour's house
and ours, which is absurd for it must be all of fifteen feet between
them. Crazy. And they were going to build some kind of
shack in our backyard for an employee to work in, to monitor traffic
or something.” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Hmm, you're under a lot
of stress.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I was devising a plan to
sell the house quickly before anyone knew of the railway, before the
value of the property would fall. I was going around trying to figure
out how to move everything quickly.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Amelia snuggled up against
him and kissed him on his warm, somewhat clammy cheek. “Well, we
know where that dream came from. Don't worry. We can move a lot of
the books to Uncle Edward's basement, and into the carriage house
basement as well. I'm sure Yves and Tom would help. Maybe even Pavor
and Jerome.” She squeezed him and rested her head on his chest.
“Or we can hire a moving company. Probably worth the money.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Duncan wrapped his right arm
around Amelia and squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head,
her hair tickling his chin. Books, books, books he thought, they'll
be the death of him. Why hadn't he been fascinated with stamps, or
butterflies? So much easier to handle, and so much lighter. As his
body relaxed in that ease of early morning calm, he envisaged a
domino effect of books. Book over book, spreading out in lines
and convolutions that resembled, in his mind, the pathways of the
black plague that had made its way across the plains of Central Asia
with the Golden Horde in the thirteenth century, erupting during their
invasion of what is now Crimea, then carried with the fleeing Italian merchants to
Constantinople, the outbreak there and their withdrawal to Italy and the inevitable outbreaks and dissemination across Europe and arrival in England. . . . books falling like bodies in the street, falling, falling, ad infinitum.<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-16208217635486278262014-02-23T18:21:00.001-05:002014-03-02T00:08:51.569-05:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Sixty-Seven<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEfoUtKbICjjVmC0ZLMxODZwqcaMFVwaXFltCqFrg2G8ADrp2XLEwcxqm7_1icib4Cq91fVUrPYiLh0nRvF8O1hVQhFkIAzqgLfJsdKKhYdfhJ9TH817Gs8ytPmgrbl-22saC2A/s1600/Albayde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEfoUtKbICjjVmC0ZLMxODZwqcaMFVwaXFltCqFrg2G8ADrp2XLEwcxqm7_1icib4Cq91fVUrPYiLh0nRvF8O1hVQhFkIAzqgLfJsdKKhYdfhJ9TH817Gs8ytPmgrbl-22saC2A/s1600/Albayde.jpg" height="155" width="200" /></a>So softly did someone tread the stairs,
that Jerome, sitting at his hallway table compiling a list of art
supplies and groceries required, was startled when he heard a knock
on his door. Thinking it odd, he sat in silence wondering who it
could be. The knock once again, firm, three taps. The silence was
resolute. He opened the door. It was either Bartholomew or Thaddeus
before him.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Bartholomew?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Are you able to have a visitor? Mrs.
L. would like to check on the progress of the painting.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome looked down to the back lane and
saw a medium sized black car reflecting the fine layer of snow in its
waxed lustre. “Yes, yes of course.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Bartholomew descended the stairs just
as quietly as his ascension and opened the rear passenger door.
Lucrezia stepped out, spoke a few words to him and then, looking over
the top of her sunglasses to Jerome, made her way up towards him.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Forgive me for descending upon you
like this, but we we're in town and I was in the neighbourhood, so .
. . .”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Not at all, come in,” he said
closing the door behind her. “Please excuse the mess. Have a seat.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Thank you. It's not messy,” she said taking off
her glasses while looking around the living room. “Just what I imagined, comfortable and bohemian.” She sat upon the
sofa and crossed her legs, her attractive calves on show.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I've always liked the look of
nineteenth century painter's studios,” Jerome said. “Oriental
rugs everywhere, heavy antique furnishings, embroidered pillows, old
bookshelves, marble and terra cotta sculptures in the corners,
half-finished canvases on dark wood easels, Persian carpets draped
over tables.” He stood awkwardly above her thinking, although
dressed in a tailored suit jacket and skirt, she didn't look out of
place. “The house of the Victorian illustrator and painter, Marcus
Stone, has always been my ideal. Enormous windows and skylights with
extraordinary natural light diffusion. He lived on Melbury Road in
London near many other artists and sculptors, Fildes, Thornycroft,
Holman-Hunt, and directly behind Stone, Lord Leighton had a home and studio. Unfortunately
Stone's house has now been divided into flats selling for millions of
pounds each.” He shook his head. “Hard to imagine artists of
today living in such splendour. Victorian artists were like today's
rock musicians. Actually, one of the houses on the street is owned by
an old rock star. I'm sorry, rambling on about myself and old houses.
I've just made a small pot of coffee. Would you like a cup?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Breathing in the aroma, she thought it
would be graceless to refuse. She nodded. “Yes, that would be nice.”
She looked around the room thinking it truly did exude a snug bohemian
comfort. Taking off her gloves, she noticed a booklet for a music CD
on the table beside her. <i>Rough Draft</i>, either the name of the
group or the album. She flipped the small pages and her eyes were
arrested by one song entitled <i>S & M</i>, and she read the
lyrics to the sounds of Jerome's preparations.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
S&M</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm a cappuccino cowgirl</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Cinnamon sweet,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Living on tomorrow,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Riding the tweet.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Chorus)</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Like it, Pin it,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tumble it dry,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Oh, the déjà strain</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of repetitive eye.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ads, buzz,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Word of mouth,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My brand's my key tattoo</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
North by south.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm a social selfie</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ego Evangelist,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To my Sado paparazzi</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm just a Solopsist.
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Chorus)</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dying for freedom,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fighting for choice,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Texting out of treason,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Seeking a voice.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Chorus)</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More Apps than I can see,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More Apps than you can
take,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm A skeleton key</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For the eye of escape.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Chorus</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(outro)</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More than I can see,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More than you can take,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm a skeleton key</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For the eye of escape.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More than I can see,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More than you can take,</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm a skeleton key
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For the eye of escape.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome noticed her reading
the booklet as he approached with the tray laden with mugs, cream, sugar and
the coffee carafe, but decided to ignore it as a conversation
starter.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He poured the coffee. “Do
you take cream, sugar?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“A touch of cream please.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“There you are,” he
said, handing her a cup. “Yes, when I explored Melbury Road in
London on foot a number of years ago, I remember wondering how a
developer was allowed to raise a concrete apartment block near the
beautiful Victorian villas.” As the words passed from his lips, he
realized she could interpret them as critical towards her husband's
profession as a real estate developer. “Lord Leighton's house fared
better,” he said trying to change the direction of his
conversation. “It's now a museum.” They both sipped their coffee.
“I used to wonder if Leighton and Marcus Stone ever got along,
exchanged words over the backyard fence so to speak. Evening strolls
with a cigarette, or cigar, conversations about models, fading
pigments, natural light, their public.” Jerome put his coffee down
and leaned back in his side chair. “Marcus Stone died in his house.
I like to think he collapsed while working on a painting.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, perhaps his ghost
wanders the hallways seeking revenge.” She smiled. “I hope I'm
not too forward in dropping by to have a peek at the painting? Am I
breaking protocol? Painter's protocol?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No, I'm pleased. I'd like
your opinion actually. I haven't seen anyone in a week so to have
your perspective would be great. Sometimes I get too close and can't
see it anymore.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Shall we?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sure, it's upstairs, if
you'll follow me.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“You lead, I'll follow.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With a slightly higher heart
rate, and a flush to his cheeks, he mounted the stairs feeling her
eyes upon him. Their words had been like double entendres, sheer
curtains around a canopy bed with their bodies entwined. The image
made him nervous. She was married and he was in a relationship,
though Thérèse's memory loss had made him feel like an impostor,
informing her of what they had once shared, experienced, felt.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The large easel in the
middle of the room held the canvas beneath a white cotton shroud.
Jerome stood to the side, his hand on the sheet, waiting for Lucrezia
to position herself, and as the sheet slipped to the floor with a
whisper of surprize, she felt the colours hit her viscerally,
overpowering her breath like a strong gust of air. Head slightly
back, arms crossed, she approached the portrait, looking directly
into her painted eyes, following the curve of the brow, her chin, her
lips, remarking the pinkish hue to her cheeks, an ideal smoothness
beyond the reality of her morning reflections. “It's wonderful.
You've captured. . . my twin, a different life, a different age.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Maybe we all
have our theoretical twins following different paths in
other ages.” They shared an intense look before Jerome turned his
eyes away. “It should be ready by the end of the month. Just the
background and the lower portion of the chair are left.” He walked
over to the window. He didn't see Bartholomew or the car. “I hope I
didn't make your cheeks and your fingernails too . . . incarnadine,”
he said to the window. “Your beauty added subtleties to the eyes
and lips bringing a greater sense of vivid life compared to the
original Lucrezia Panciatichi who, due to the times, was portrayed as
rather . . . stolid. Spiritual, but stolid. There's more
sub-textual expression in the placement of her fingers than in her
face.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She looked at the hands, the fingers parted over the armrest, the fingers resting on the small book. “You have a gift Jerome.
It's perfect.” She approached and stood beside him looking out the
window. “With your talent, you could have your ideal studio if you
wanted. Are you one of those who feel undeserving of success?” Not
waiting for a reply, she continued, “An old friend of mine from
University was like that. She was extremely smart, talented, and
wouldn't accept her gifts. When fortune came her way, she suspected
something like a trap, and reared up. Sometimes there's no trap,
sometimes life is all cheese, and one must accept it.” An awkward
silence surrounded them. “I'm sorry, now I'm sounding like one of
those motivational DVDs.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No, I understand. I do lack a . . . certain professional drive to succeed.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lucrezia wandered over to
his work table covered in the preparatory sketches, jars of brushes,
pencils, sharp-nibbed dip pens like miniature spears, erasers, books,
and rags. She noticed a slim volume with spots of red paint on the
cover, <i>Alacrity and Karma on a Yacht off Palmyra</i> by P. K.
Loveridge. The title made her recall a conversation between Declan
and Harry when they were relaxing at their home in the Caribbean.
Harry had been reading a book concerning the death of a wealthy
couple and the theft of their yacht off the small atoll of Palmyra in
the Pacific ocean, which led to a dinner conversation over the
dangers to rich people yachting around the world where pirates and
criminals were afloat. A lifestyle with too much freedom can be rife
with vulnerability had been their conclusion. She looked up and
noticed a woman staring at her from a reproduction of a painting
attached to a cork board, a nose similar to hers, aquiline, but the
eyes were sullen and dark with an unfathomable emotion. “Who
painted this portrait?” she asked turning around to him, pointing
her finger at the subject.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh, that's a painting by
Alexandre Cabanel, his <i>Albayde</i>. He was an Academic painter,
anti-impressionist at the time, old school but a brilliant painter
and teacher nevertheless. I saw a retrospective on his work a few
years ago in Montpellier. I think it was the first since his death in
the late 1880s.” Jerome walked over to a corner bookshelf and
withdrew a large glossy softcover catalogue. “Here, you can borrow
this and look it over.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She flipped it open and
seeing a self-portrait of the painter when young, thought he looked
like Jerome. “He looks like you, though you don't have his severe
and intimidating expression.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Umm, yes, people have
said as much. I wonder if he ever smiled? The painting, <i>Albayde</i>,
was inspired by Victor Hugo's poetry collection, <i>Les Orientales. </i>
The fantasy and the colour of Orientalism was such a great theme in
Romantic painting and literature. What do you think of her eyes? ”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She looked more closely.
“Mesmerizing and menacing at the same time. I wonder what the model
thought of Cabanel? Was she angry? Desirous? Do models fall for their
painters like patients for their psychiatrists?”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, well, that I don't
know. I can't say it's happened with me.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Leaning over the table, she
rubbed shoulders with Jerome.“Too bad for Mr. Loveridge's book,”
she said pointing to slim volume on the table.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh, yeah, but the
author's a friend of mine, Pavor Kristof Loveridge. He won't mind. He
recently returned from Italy and proposed marriage to his girlfriend
of many years and they're to marry in the spring. She's a librarian
at the Religious Library at McGill.” Seeing the chance to bring up
the cause of Duncan Strand and his business dilemma, he elaborated.
“It'll be a small wedding at the McGill chapel. I'll be best man
and a new friend of ours will be the groomsman. An interesting guy
named Duncan Strand, a bookseller who used to work for some shop
called <i>Grange Stuart</i> before opening his own called <i>Lafcadio
& Co</i>. But the funny thing is, he's also running an old family
business in the same building, selling all types of rope. Well, for a
few more weeks anyway. A company has bought the land and is going
tear it down and build condominiums. He has to close both his shops.
Reopening a secondhand bookshop in today's world isn't feasible
according to him. Bookshops are closing due to high rents and low
demand.” Jerome related this information in his most casual manner
while arranging the sketches on the table, avoiding eye contact.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Duncan
Strand?” she said. “I know the name. He did work for my
husband many years ago. A catalogue of old books.” She walked back
to her portrait and stared once more at her mythical twin. “That's
unfortunate. I think my husband's company is involved in that
development. Perhaps I could have a word with him. See if something
can't be done to help our Mr. Strand.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jerome looked at her
wondering if he should press her with questions about the catalogue
and see if she'd bring up the <i>Dark Room</i>, but decided against
doing so. Pleased with her response, he joined her before the
portrait and thought he'd help portray Duncan as a sympathetic type. "It's a small world. It's a shame he has to close the bookshop. I had dinner with him
and his wife, Amelia, a translator, and he told me how much he loved
visiting second hand bookshops for he never knew what might be on the
shelves. Each visit would be a little adventure in promise,
possibility, discovery. He went on about the joy of finding books with unusual inscriptions. He had many stories about inscriptions
but I remember the one about a copy of <i>Tom Jones</i>, where the
owner had written their name and underneath, <i>Christmas present
from himself</i> and the date. Something poignant about that. Made me
think of a lonely man at Christmas, reading <i>Tom Jones</i> for
consolation.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's very sad, yes.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Except for his book
choice. I imagine <i>Tom Jones</i> must have kept his spirits up.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
She laughed and laid her
hand on his shoulder.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Turning his head towards
her, his lips only inches away from her fingers, he reached over and
gently pulled her hand towards him and kissed her delicate fingers
and her palm, and she turned to him, drawing his head down to her
parted blouse, and then all sense of the outer world with its
defences and barricades dissolved around them as they embraced with
mournful undertones under the gaze of the portrait, her twin, neither
stolid, nor too spiritual, and under the gaze from afar, of <i>Albayde</i>,
sullen and all-knowing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-3585464304714475702014-02-16T15:06:00.001-05:002014-02-17T19:21:55.626-05:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Sixty-Six<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPHMitksvRUQBwqEXKhC4lmQRSL1dUYT4lazk7u2VH8KlBhlmIyKF7-PZvQ0v8oQkfLM6IoAGDvhfu-Cq5ZCjPX6SWi8tSwnhJxfK33ZGrH_krcP9lpXuiPtB_-qeAxcTql0Csw/s1600/bkplate2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPHMitksvRUQBwqEXKhC4lmQRSL1dUYT4lazk7u2VH8KlBhlmIyKF7-PZvQ0v8oQkfLM6IoAGDvhfu-Cq5ZCjPX6SWi8tSwnhJxfK33ZGrH_krcP9lpXuiPtB_-qeAxcTql0Csw/s1600/bkplate2.jpg" height="157" width="200" /></a>Duncan fumbled for the shop keys in his
trouser pocket while he stared up at an x-shaped vapour trail, its
sharp outlines dissipating against the blue sky. Was it a sign? A
negative response, an omen? Or was it merely a visual outline
reminiscent of a game of noughts and crosses? He was uneasy in his
interpretations of late. A grand <i>Nay? </i>Or
noughts and crosses? Time would tell. The latter choice, however,
also held signifiers, the cross both a sign of negation and
salvation, so unlike the zero, a natural form, emblem of this
universe of spinning galaxies and their spinning worlds in orbits of
unending time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Down the street he noticed the profile
of a surveyor leaning over a yellow tripod, his eye to the theodolite
like a submarine Captain at a periscope. Preparations were being
made, plans drawn, visualizations created. The surveyor adjusted his
stance and it occurred to him the technology was as ancient as the
Great Pyramids when compared to quantum computing, a subject Tom
Culacino had discussed over dinner a few nights ago, an
incomprehensible digression concerning multi-dimensional
simultaneity. He could understand the straight lines, angles and
points of the surveyor's art, but Tom's musings concerning the shift
from binary digits to qubits had rendered him dizzy—though it could
have been the wine.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Coins spilled over the edge of his
pocket as he withdrew the keys. Festina lente, he thought, festina
lente, the image of Aldus Manutius's printer's mark, the dolphin and
the anchor passed before his eyes as he stooped to retrieve the loose
change from their circular beds in the dusting of snow.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He locked the door behind him and
turned the sign around for customers to ring for entry, and then made
his way to the staircase to his bookshop on the second floor. Without
Julie working mornings in the cordage business, the building was very
quiet, every day feeling like a Sunday. She'd been playing the music
of <i>Arcade Fire </i>over the past
few months—a friend of his had called hip Montrealers in their
twenties, the <i>Arcade Fire</i>
<i>Generation</i> just as he
had once called their own <i>The Men Without Hats
Generation</i>—the rhythms
and driving beat wafting up through the old building like a
transfusion of fresh blood into the arms of an ailing valetudinarian.
She hadn't been surprized, nor disappointed when he informed her of
his closing the business. She had her job at the hair salon, A
combination of habit and pity had kept her working for Duncan. A
parting gift of a fine illustrated copy of Louis Hémon's<i> Marie
Chapdelaine</i> along with a DVD of the 1984 dramatization of the
book starring Carol Laure, had been his first choice for her, but the
more he had contemplated the gift, the more it seemed out of date and
irrelevant to a young woman of today. Louis Hémon, an author who'd
met his death between the parallel lines of train tracks west of
Chapleau in northern Ontario almost a hundred years ago, never to
witness the publication and later popularity of his novel, seemed to
him a bizarre choice as he looked out at the urban landscape they
shared, this rich diversity between the river and the mountain, this
metropolitan promise between the whirlpools and the cross.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He'd opted for a substantial iTunes
card instead.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He plugged the kettle in to make tea
and then sat at his desk feeling that he was settling into one of his
lows. “Concavities” Tom had called them, using his mathematical
metaphors with their subtle nuances of meaning beyond Duncan's
understanding. Ever since hearing of the sale of the land for
condominium development, his moods had been erratic, shifting back
and forth between a sense of freedom, to one of immobilizing
helplessness. His mind began to ponder the what ifs. What if Amelia
had not played with her sister in her uncle's dumb waiter as a child?
He might not have been called to replace the ropes, and hence, would
never have met her. She might have married someone better, a lawyer,
doctor, engineer, someone who could have provided a stable financial
existence. Had he ruined her life? What if he'd broken free from his
Father's business, gone abroad, pursued another career? What if he
hadn't been entranced by that first true book he'd bought from his
church bazaar when young, that small hardcover biography of Keats by
Sidney Colvin, the spine cocked, the former owner's name on the
flyleaf, pulling him into the vortex of literary magic? What if he
hadn't quarrelled with his brother? What if his Mother hadn't died?
What ifs were like unredeemed winning lottery tickets past their due
date. He breathed in deeply. Too many things had happened recently.
The discovery of the odd manuscript and its mysterious disappearance
from the shop; the switch of the laptop bags leaving him with
Kierkegaard's <i>Either/Or </i>instead
of the 1881 cash book; and finally, the condominium
development and his dilemma of how to deal with a lifetime of books
and a remnant family business. <i>Three's a charm</i> his Dad used to
say. What else did he say? <i>There's nothing between the sceptre and
the spade but hard work Duncan.</i> Nothing between the sceptre and
the spade. Spadework. Grave digging. <i>Alas poor Yorick.</i> Be
resilient Duncan he told himself. Be resilient. But as the water
boiled in the kettle, he was imagining himself lying down in an
enormous book, the text of the right hand pages cut out to fit the
contours of his body, the lines of text truncated by his form, and
his body inked to replace the missing letters and words. Then he
imagined the preliminary pages descending over him, followed by the
stiff green buckram binding revealing a gilt decorative emblem on the
cover of an ouroboros in the form of thick coil of rope, tail in
mouth, with an open book in the centre. <i>A Life in Books</i> -
<i>Duncan Strand</i> in gilt letters on the spine. Buried in print,
in a book shaped coffin.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The click of the kettle's automatic
turn-off feature brought him to his feet.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What would be the text he wondered?
What letters and words would cover his body? A teabag slipped
between his fingers and fell to the floorboards like a seedpod and he
quietly cursed the stiffness in the joints of his left index finger
and the fatty tumour growing in the palm of his left hand, an
enlarging knot pulling on the tendons of his fingers like a spider
the threads of its web. He stretched his fingers back feeling the
tension, and examined the small pale hillock between the head and
heart lines with its radiating shadow lines, just one of many that
his body seemed to produce with abandon—the one on his right
forearm was the size of a scallop. See the doctor Amelia had said,
but the last thing he wanted was someone digging around in the palm
of his hand possibly making it worse. Ever since he had turned fifty
years of age, his body had been setting off warning lights like an
old car.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He placed the tea cozy over the small
pot which reminded him of his Mother snugging his wool hat on his
head. He could see her at the dining room table for
her Tuesday morning teapot meetings with Mrs. MacSween and Mrs.
Brown, neighbours and friends—Edna and Agnes to her—and he could
hear her voice saying she'd be Mother and pour the tea. From the
bottom stair he would listen as the Queen Anne English bone china
cups would burble with delight, and he'd watch the vapour rising from
their delicate gilt rims and wait for the gentle plop of a sugar cube
and the clink of the spoon before the sublime silence of the first
sip.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Taking a deep breath to dispel the
memory, he turned around and walked towards the book stacks. There
was a time when he could have recounted the purchase memory of each
book—a church bazaar in 1990 for that volume, a hot summer's day at
an estate sale on Rosyln Avenue in '82, for that one—but the books
had outnumbered his casual recall for years now; and the books he'd
sold over the years had vanished from him completely as if he'd
packaged and shipped off their memories of provenance along with the
books themselves. He looked into the first aisle to his left and
scanned the colourful spines. Perhaps he could choose a text to
represent the page to surround his body in his imaginary book coffin.
He looked into the aisle to his right, the aisle of <i>Sir Percivale</i>
where the end of the alphabet graced the shelves, and thought Swift's
<i>Gulliver's Travels</i> seemed apropos. Voltaire's <i>Candide</i>?
Waugh's <i>Brideshead</i>? Wells's <i>Time Machine</i>? Wilde's <i>The
Importance of Being Earnest</i>? Woolf's <i>The Waves</i>? He turned
his attention to his left, the aisle of <i>Sir Lancelot</i>, and
looked up to see Kobo Abe's <i>Women in the Dunes. </i>He always
liked that book. Atwood's <i>Life Before Man</i>? Borges's <i>Ficciones</i>?
Conrad's <i>Lord Jim</i>? Such a wonderful opening passage. A heavy
quarto of Balzac's <i>Les Chouans</i>, with a hundred engravings? Or
the large edition of Robert Burton's <i>The Anatomy of Melancholy</i>,
its gilt titles faded? A favourite volume of Keats he remembered. It
was a volume that seemed to have edged its way forward from its
shelf-mates as if eager to be picked. Taking it down, he blew the
dust off the top edge and dust motes floated in the muted light like
fecal matter in an aquarium. He brought the book back to his desk
thinking perhaps a more elaborate form of bibliomancy was necessary,
something greater than the Sortes Vergilianae, the divination by the
random placement of an index finger. Why not dip into that sub rosa
randomness that's been tripping him up of late. Why not use chance to
shine a light into the depths of happenstance. Why not avail himself
of the arbitrary to perceive the ultramundane and stimulate that
preternatural presence he occasionally felt when playing cards or
scrabble with Amelia, that sense of a whimsical, playful manipulation
overseeing the game. All mathematics Tom would have said, the math
behind the odds, the odds behind the math, but still, that sense of
something behind the curtain, an unexplainable shadow presence that
remained with him.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The large book lay unopened on his lap</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
On a pad of
paper, he wrote down the simplest of questions, “What Is Going On?” He
counted the letters, 13, added the spaces, 3, multiplied by the
number of words, 4, to arrive at 64, and then multiplied this number
by the three odd occurrences, leaving him with the sum of 192.
Picking up the heavy volume of Robert Burton's <i>Melancholy</i> to
seek out the 192<sup>nd</sup> page, he opened it and at once a large
bookmark for <i>Grange Stuart Books</i> fell out into his lap. The
bookmark had been living in the dark interstices between pages 304
and 305, <i>Partition 1, Section 2, Member 4, Subsection 7, An heap
of other Accidents causing Melancholy.</i> He read the first
paragraph:
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<i>In this
Labyrinth of accidental causes, the farther I wander, the more
intricate I find the passage, & new causes as so many by-paths
offer themselves to be discussed. To search out all were an Herculean
work, & fitter for Theseus: I will follow mine intended thread;
and point only at some few of the chiefest.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
Was this the sign
itself? Not so much an answer, as an understanding? The words
reminded him of the quotes on the slip of paper that fell from the
Kierkegaard volume, quotes from the philosophers Wisdom and
Wittgenstein, and he sensed there was a resonance between them and this Burton passage. But what about page 192? Checking it, he
discovered a mundane description of how diet affects the humours, all
carps, lobsters, crabs, cowcumbers, coleworts and melons, and quickly
dismissed it as insignificant. It was almost as if there was a dual
nature to this preternatural presence, a good and an evil, one of
helpful guidance, and one of mischievous misdirection. He turned back
to page 304-05 and once more read the opening passage. Everything
was somehow connected.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
The phone rang. Silence greeted him on the other line. He didn't repeat his initial hello, but sat there listening to the fuzzy static, feeling like he was staring into a dark haunted house waiting for a ghost to appear.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm; text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
To the sound of the surveyors pounding stakes into the ground, Duncan looked out of his window and sipped his tea, the residuum of unreality leaving him with
the bitter taste of his cross-grained and self-aggravated existence.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -0.03cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-20684307921408645712014-02-09T01:19:00.002-05:002014-02-09T12:58:43.511-05:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Sixty-Five<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTd0z2rVbS70znCSMsPDQ5QoERyDwgJHQQxhVTYvL-zz8cviQ5UU2U1LMMgQGho_K4tqQFDXTdBUMIMb_UZ_YbdgFIRV99AQcmANPeErH39QbS5H428pbI-HDzFQ35UE3z1QugEQ/s1600/marbled54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTd0z2rVbS70znCSMsPDQ5QoERyDwgJHQQxhVTYvL-zz8cviQ5UU2U1LMMgQGho_K4tqQFDXTdBUMIMb_UZ_YbdgFIRV99AQcmANPeErH39QbS5H428pbI-HDzFQ35UE3z1QugEQ/s1600/marbled54.jpg" height="196" width="320" /></a>The Sunday New York Times for November
18, 2012, lay upon Edward Seymour's desk in a state of well-read
completion, its neatly stacked sections with alternating folds from
left to right, reminded him of a sagging trampoline. Did habit
underlie his subscription renewal each year? Were his weekly
pleasures and frustrations in its reading, mere conditioned
responses? Were the stories and their inevitable corrections mere
stimuli goading him to bear the weight of the world's dysfunction
upon his aged shoulders? Picking up his thin copper paper knife worn
smooth with years of handling, and thousands of envelope openings, he
ran his finger alone the dulled edge while he thought of the
continuing saga of unrest in the world, the unending narrative of
conflict and suffering.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The day's mail lay before him on the
desk blotter like missives from the front lines of some distant
battle. He closed his eyes and his mind was soon
led away by a reminiscence of youth. It was June 1927, he was seven
years of age and beginning a two-week stay with his aunt in the green
leafy paradise of Highgate while his parents were in Holland
attending a wedding. The great war must have been reflected in the
eyes of the widows, but all he remembered was their presence as
visitors calling on his aunt, and as dresses and hats filling up the
pews of St. Michael's Church whose tall spire rose above the treetops
pointing to heaven like a broadsword. He could still recall the face
of an elderly woman, a friend of his aunt's who took him by the hand
and showed him the green stone slab in the central aisle of the
church commemorating a great poet, and he'd been overcome with the
image of this great mysterious man looking up in darkness beneath
him, an image which had triggered a recurring nightmare for many
months afterwards. It was only as a teenager he'd understood the
mysterious poet had been Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and when he had
visited his aunt after the war, he had revisited the church and read
the inscription and quietly whispered the opening lines of <i>Kubla
Khan—</i>that fragment much maligned by Hazlitt and others—as his
offering to that long suffering poet, and to his wife and family who
must have suffered exponentially from his addiction to the “dull
opiates” and his afflictions of spirit, and also, as closure for
his own journey of survival.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He must have been in his thirties when
he read the fanciful story concerning Coleridge and Charles Lamb on
Hampstead Heath. He looked at his bookshelves trying to recall what
author, what book. Charles Lamb had met Coleridge on the Heath, and
the great poet had supposedly taken hold of a button on Lamb's coat
and launched himself on a long recondite discourse. Lamb,
remembering an appointment, had taken a pocket knife and cut himself
free, only to return later to find the poet still in full exposition,
deep in the complexities of an unfathomable subject, still holding
forth, still holding . . . the button.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
George III stretched and yawned on the
carpet. They'd had their early morning walk in the light dusting of
snow, their footprints following those of a small rabbit down the
driveway to the sidewalk in a triadic semblance of the hunt. A dog's
life seemed so simple, and yet, so insecure. George's character, he
thought, was much like Max, his aunt and uncle's Airedale, and the
source of his love for the breed. Those early excursions on Hampstead
Heath with his uncle and Max, and the bright distant allure of
Kenwood House—where he was told an elderly Irish noble lived—were
experiences that continued to inform his life beneath the surface,
under the fold, the love of Airedales, the love of pastoral walks,
the love of stories. The thought occurred to him that he could also
trace his choice of profession back to that elderly woman pointing
out the dead, and much troubled, poet under the cold commemorative
stone, the birth of his nascent desire to understand the psychology
behind it all.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eased by this brief foray into the
past, he gripped the paper knife firmly and turned to his
correspondence, the topmost envelope being addressed to him in the
hand of Isabel Cloutier. He inspected the stamp, a recent issue of
one of the Zodiac signs, Libra, Balance, and felt it was a symbol to
interpret, a subtle message concerning the inquiry he'd placed before
her like one of the labours of Heracles. No return address. He slit
the top of the envelope and withdrew a card, the front illustration
being a small brown owl, sad and vulnerable looking, a watercolour by
Albrecht Dürer. Isabel, with her small, left sloping script, had
written within:
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Friday November 16<sup>th</sup>,
2012.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Dear Edward,</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I hope this finds you well. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Since we last spoke on Monday,
October 29<sup>th</sup>, my inquiries have met with quick
resistance. I <u>thought</u> I was being discreet. I was informed
that my unofficial inquiries into David Ashemore must cease; the
operation Ashemore had uncovered had been dealt with, and his death
had no connection with said operation. I certainly felt the pressure
to conform or risk the consequences. I was reminded of my position as
profiler and forensic psychologist, and it was pointed out that I was not a
freelance investigator. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I did, however, interview a woman
who continues to visit Ashemore's grave and leaves flowers. We had
coffee and she opened up to me. She too thought his death was
unnatural. She is now estranged from her husband, and I asked her if
he could have been a source of retribution against David. She
admitted it was a possibility, but felt it unlikely. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>It seems, at least for now, we'll
never know for certain what was behind his death.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>My apologies.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>All my love,</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Isabel</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He stared at her
writing until the words and letters became unfocused hieroglyphic
scratchings, and then reached for his journal and opened it to a
fresh page and began to write.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Tuesday November 20<sup>th</sup>,</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I received a letter from Isabel
Cloutier today concerning her inquiry into the death of David
Ashemore. Her efforts were officially stymied. She was forced to
give it up. A depressing, though not unexpected, outcome. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I do hope her career will not be affected. What an old fool I have been.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>This will be but another fragment to
decipher after the Fates have finished with me, after Atropos, that
daughter of the night, has cut me free. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Opening
a drawer, he withdrew a glue stick and rubbed two circles on the back
of her card and then with his dry fingertips, pressed it down on the
facing page of his journal. A sad little owl staring at his bleak
entry for the day.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">©Copyright 2006-2010 Ralph Mackay. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31547074.post-64444115251896588952014-01-30T23:47:00.001-05:002015-06-28T23:33:59.230-04:00Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Sixty-Four<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeNSC2T6G3-hwqpPCTgscFF1ugP016YwL9zStQHr6KNnmj2Azw67yD-_1f3x2VTYG2J8PlssllQVfXTrSVbaOlklFAOOG3ffxO0CpjG5IN8mA0yWD1K6ky3PFemqrZi5vf3PkxQ/s1600/vanitas2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeNSC2T6G3-hwqpPCTgscFF1ugP016YwL9zStQHr6KNnmj2Azw67yD-_1f3x2VTYG2J8PlssllQVfXTrSVbaOlklFAOOG3ffxO0CpjG5IN8mA0yWD1K6ky3PFemqrZi5vf3PkxQ/s1600/vanitas2.jpg" width="200" /></a>Backing into a parking space on
boulevard St. Laurent, Pavor recognized a portion of a storefront
that used to be an old bakery back in the 1970s, a shop where his
Westmount Anglo-Saxon Protestant Father would politely request a
dozen white seed bagels and a loaf of country style every other
Friday to bring up to the cottage. As he sat there searching for
change for the parking meter, he could almost see his Dad pulling
into the driveway in his burgundy Volvo 245GL, and emerging with his
brief case and the brown paper bag with its fresh baked aromas which
would follow him down the hallway into the kitchen where he would
inevitably praise the <i>St. Lawrence Bakery </i>as the finest
purveyor of the tastiest, light bready bagels in the city. Having
accompanied him on occasion, Pavor remembered the shop's simple
unadorned window display areas, the dim
overhead lighting, elderly cashiers and assistants, voices from the
back in a language unknown to him, and the overwhelming fragrance of
baked goods, an example of what his Father said used to dominate the
street, a plethora of small shops selling meat, fish, textiles,
hardware, books, leathers, dress goods, shoes, dry goods and
groceries, shops now expanded and merged into larger spaces for
restaurants, discos, bars and nightclubs. The old bakery was now part
of an expanded space selling musical instruments and all the
technological appendages and paraphernalia to accompany them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As he walked up the street towards
<i>Schwartz's </i>where he was to meet his agent for lunch, the
international language of Graffiti graced the way like so much
signage, though one of high colour and artistic accomplishment he had
to admit. It was only the other night when he was further up on this
hallowed street following Jerome into <i>Le Bar Prufrock</i> to
happen upon <i>Rough Draft</i>
performing their post-modern<i> </i>songs
on a small stage in a small room. His ears were still ringing thanks
to Livia Plurabelle, Adagio and Zoran. Passing the large space where
<i>Warshaw's Grocery</i> used to be, now a <i> Pharmaprix</i>, he
recalled a place where you could buy anything from cabbage rolls to
card tables, figs to flatware, perogies to ping pong balls, but
though it had vanished due to generational change, two institutions
had persisted like guardians on either side of the street, <i>Schwartz's
Deli </i>and <i>Berson & Sons
Granite Monuments</i> with its open yard displaying slabs of
rough stone beneath the rusted iron beams and uprights of the ghost
of a building that once had been faced with bricks and mortar, and
life within. Local street artists had adorned the inner courtyard and
its balcony of the old building behind, with intrusive swirls of
colour, a psychedelic contrast to the grey offerings on sale.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He checked his watch and saw he was a
few minutes early. Looking through the window he could tell the lunch
crowd had diminished, and being late October, the tourists were in
abeyance. Opening the door, he felt his Father’s hand on his
shoulder as he guided him into the restaurant saying it was a
Montreal rite of passage to sit at the counter amidst the manic
bustle and the noise of dish clangings, kitchen slicings, phone
ringings, customer orderings, voice voicings and mouth chewings,
surrounded by the competing elbows of business men in suits, taxi
drivers, factory labourers, truckers, students, an overwhelming male
milieu he had thought, a milieu that had been cramped and noisy but
offered simple dishes of ambrosia, everything else was atmosphere.
Natural atmosphere.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He spotted Luke sitting at a back table
fiddling with his shiny smart phone.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Texting Thomas Pynchon by any
chance?” Pavor said as he sat down.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Somehow I don't think he needs an
agent,” Luke Newton said, unperturbed by Pavor's quiet arrival.
“So, the Prodigal son returns. Don't worry, I've already ordered:
two full-fat smoked meat sandwiches, fries, slaw, pickles and two
cherry cokes. When you don't come here often, you have to do it
right, seize the pickle, embrace the cherry coke.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What if I'd been delayed?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh, my friend,” Luke intoned
touching his midriff like a carny at a sideshow, “it would <i>not
</i>have gone to waste.” Luke appraised Pavor and wondered if he
should hit him with the good news, or investigate the bad? “So, did
you come back to Montreal for a special Halloween party or something?
A chance to portray a six foot three, fair-haired Dracula and attend
a dance party put on by <i>Arcade Fire</i> at a secret venue?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor turned sideways as the waiter
brought them their meal, a balancing act worthy of a circus
performer. “I'm impressed Fig. I didn't know you were up on the
latest trends.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Kids, P. K., my kids keep my up to
date. An ironic dividend for ageing me in other ways,” and he ran a
hand through his thinning grey hair.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“No, as I said, personal affairs.”
He bit into his sandwich and almost forgot himself in its succulence.
Finding himself hungry, he finished off one half of the sandwich and
then wiped his lips. “I proposed marriage to Melisande. We're to
marry in the spring.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fig, in the midst of stuffing two
french fries into his mouth, heaved as if on the edge of choking, a visualization of the contractions of his heart passed before his eyes,
the diastole and systole ventriculations his Doctor had pointed out
to him in the MRI images of his own dear heart. “A toast to the
happy couple,” he managed, cherry coke in hand. “What
precipitated this? I mean, I know you've been in a relationship with
Melisande for some time. Why the sudden decision? Is she . . . ?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor bit off half of his crunchy
garlicky pickle and wiped his fingers ignoring the unasked question.
“When I was in Italy, I experienced a series of fortunate, and
perhaps unfortunate incidents which helped me reevaluate my life. You
know me Fig, I've not felt at home in Montreal for a long time. All
my late Father's relatives live in England. My Mother now lives in
Prague. I have no family here. Victoria and Tamara have been gone for
a long time, and at 47, I'm starting to . . . waver in my isolation I
guess.” He ate a few french fries with the concentration of an
epicure. “After the tragedy, I moved to Toronto, yes, you didn't
know that did you, but I didn't last. I felt alien there as well. All
these years my sensibilities have been in a virtual space
halfway between Europe and Montreal. I often considered moving, but concluded I'd feel just as alien abroad. But I can see now that Melisande is my
grounding, my home.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Nodding to Pavor's revelations, Luke
decided he should tell him the good news. “Well, that's great P.
K., I look forward to the wedding. Fabulous. And talking about
fabulous, we've received a new option on your <i>Olivaster Moon.</i>
I know the first one died in development, but you never know, this
one might make it through.” Luke gave him a slip of paper with the
amount paid. “So my friend, some nice cashola for your upcoming
wedding eh!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's wonderful,” he said, and as
he stared at the numbers, the thought came to him that if he'd only
known, he could have kept the inscribed Sir Richard Francis Burton
book and offered it to Duncan to sell; as it was, he hadn't mentioned the book to Duncan for it would have caused him some pain to know he
could have been the recipient of such a rarity to sell, an item to
add prestige to his modest list. But then, how could he have known?
“That's wonderful Fig, thanks so much. Who's behind it?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The name and information is on the
back of the paper, <i>Grindel & Poe Productions</i>. Looks good.
Could be some big names attached. So, how's the new book coming
along?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It's progressing. Getting there.
Early days though.” Pavor finished his sandwich and dug into the
slaw with abandon. Should he tell Fig his thoughts about knocking off
his anti-hero Rex Packard? Three Rex novels was a good number. He
could see a large trade paper edition, <i>The Rex Packard Trilogy</i>.
“I've been thinking of leaving Rex behind after this one and trying
my hand at something a bit more . . . literary.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Luke finished his pickle while looking
at Pavor for signs of jest. “You're starting to sound like an
unreliable narrator P. K.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Aren't we all, consciously or
unconsciously, unreliable narrators. Anyway, three Rex novels is a
good number don't you think?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Plying his french fries with vinegar,
Luke tried to think of what to say. Why discontinue a good thing he
thought? Why go from a sports car to a station wagon? “Three's a
good number, yes, but there's a hell of lot of competition in the
'literary' world these days, all those twenty-somethings with their
MFA's in creative writing pumping out novels only to be picked up by
colleges and universities to teach creative writing classes in order
to cultivate further crops of designated writers, creating an ever
expanding literary loop.” He finished his cherry coke like it was
a shot of whiskey.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I know, I know,” Pavor said
pushing his plate aside. “I didn't start by publishing poems and
short stories in the small journals, making connections and confreres
in the culture, no widening ripples of welcoming arms to embrace and
support my efforts. I just sat in my corner of the boxing ring, no one
behind me, no trainer with a swab, a stitch, a soft towel and a water
bottle telling me to watch my left side, no family or friends
cheering me on, the ring a blinding light, the imagined audience a
series of dark outlines with murmurings of discontent, cigar chewing
denouncements, snarky asides and derisive snorts.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“But I've been there for you.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, of course, but in the beginning
I was out there by myself. The canvas of the ring was so thin I
thought I'd go right through it and that would be it. Finis.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Don't you want to keep working
towards one of those great awards, an Edgar, an Agatha, a Gold
Dagger, an Arthur Ellis or what's that other one, the, the . . . Grant Allen?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor stretched with his arms behind
his head, raised his eyebrows in response and breathed out slowly.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Next thing you'll be telling me
you're going to move to a small town in southern Ontario and try to
get published by <i>Highmore & Limbert</i>. Do you really want to
be gilded by the Giller, governed by the General, manipulated by the
Man Booker?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor laughed. “Maybe we should have lunch more often so I can copy down all your bon
mots and phrases of wisdom.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, you've got me thinking, on a
full stomach no less. What's your Mother's maiden name?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“My Mother's maiden name? Valasek.
Why?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's perfect. You could use her
name for your literary work, and keep P. K. Loveridge for your crime
series. Pavor Valasek gives off the the aura of a European author.
Yes, I can see some of the titles already, <i>Vespers</i> by Pavor
Valasek; <i>Valour</i> by Pavor Valasek; <i>Vestiges</i> by Pavor
Valasek.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I don't know Luke, as I had one of
my characters say, 'Where vanity raises its head, vulgarity is sure
to follow.' Pavor Valasek? Really?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Why not? You can keep the sports car
and also have the station wagon. Loveridge and Valasek. Win, win. You
can knock off a book for each author every year. Brilliant. Why
didn't I think of this before?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pavor finished his cherry coke and
quietly, with his hands over his mouth, burped. “Sorry, no offence.
Two books a year?”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Just think of it Pavor. An <i>Edgar</i>
and a <i>Booker</i>. In the same year!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Outside, Pavor breathed in the cool
refreshing air and waited for Fig to finish paying. Two books a year!
He should have remained quiet and said all was well, the book would
be in on time, blah, blah, blah, but no, he had to be honest. Then
again, there was a certain appeal to such an idea. Pavor Valasek? It
might work. A different set of clothes. <i>Vespers</i> had a nice
ring to it. He looked across the street at the granite slabs and
wondered what would be on his gravestone. Loveridge or Valasek? Then
he shook his head. How ridiculous, Vanitas it would read. Vanitas.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
© ralph patrick mackay </div>
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No portion of this site, Chumley and Pepys On Books, may be copied without the express written consent of the author</div>ralph mackayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758060032139481984noreply@blogger.com0