William Deverell: Snow Job

Margaret went to her inner office to field some media calls. The others turned to the task of organizing a protest. “Let’s do something cool. Street theatre.”

Arthur headed for the door, leaving word that he’d be enjoying the sun. He wandered to the riverbank, stared morosely at the currents boiling from the Chaudiere rapids. As if pulled by some Circean magnet, he found himself passing between the statues of Truth and Justice that guarded the steps of the Supreme Court building.

He stood for a while on the glistening Italian marble of the Grand Entrance Hall, a fine example of fascist interior design with its flags, heads on pedestals, doors panelled with threatened species of hardwoods.

Then he was in the chamber of the court itself, empty now but for the usher and a lawyer packing up his briefs. He smiled at a memory of ill-tempered Justice Robichaud getting so balled up he stomped from court. That duel with Liebowitz, C.J., on the Charter of Rights, that was a high point. Fuelled by a four-martini lunch at the Rideau Club, he’d won him over, the swing vote, five to four.

Tragger, Inglis, his old office, had been phoning incessantly. Maybe he should return the calls, maybe they had a juicy murder … Forget it. He was happily retired.

Out of principle, Margaret preferred to walk or take public transit, but used a leased Prius on occasions like this evening’s, one of their rare dinners together. The restaurant they were looking for was in downtown Hull — they’d dined well there once — but they couldn’t remember its name. Portuguese, informal, intimate.

They found a parkade and walked around, finally spotting the restaurant halfway down the block. “Pause for a moment, Arthur.” Margaret pretended interest in the offerings of a dress shop window. “I think we’re being followed. Don’t look.”

But Arthur did, without thinking, stepping around her and almost bumping into a tall man in a long black coat. Light brown hair, dark glasses. Spectral, sharp featured, gawky. “ Pardonnez-moi ,” Arthur said.

The stranger continued on in silence, then started shuffling across the street and was nearly hit by a swerving, shouting cyclist. “ Watche-toue! ” That persuaded him to remove his dark glasses before continuing to the opposite curb.

“He was behind me in a blue compact. He drove into the parkade just as we walked from it. I don’t know if he’s drunk or what.”

Arthur had picked up tobacco breath, but no alcohol. As they reached their restaurant, the man stopped at a well-lit brasserie directly across the street and studied the posted menu.

“Just one of those odd coincidences. He was going to that restaurant.”

Margaret didn’t seem so sure. “Works for the Alberta oil lobby. His assignment — get the dirt on Margaret Blake. I’m with my husband, you creepy idiot.”

The supposed spy took an outdoor table, lit a cigarette, donned wire-rim spectacles, looked quickly at them, then hid behind a menu.

Margaret asked the head waiter for a table by the window.

“With pleasure, Madame Blake, we are honoured.” He held her chair. “Madame will accept a complimentary champagne?” Arthur was Mr. Invisible.

To anyone but Arthur, a two-bedroom apartment with a sunset view over parkland and lake would be anything but a prison, but that’s how he’d come to see it. Before he’d made the great leap forward to Garibaldi, he’d been a city dweller, but on a capacious lot, with garden, lawn, and trees.

Now he was relegated to four pots of frostbitten gardenias on a balcony ten storeys above what soon would be a frozen wasteland. The half-century-old blocky building, befitting the suburbs of Moscow, was near Carleton University and full of noisy students. Apartment 10B was on loan to Margaret from a fervent Green, now a visiting professor at Oregon State.

“We can afford better,” he’d argued.

“We can’t disappoint him,” Margaret insisted.

Muffled rock and roll from the flat below, disjunctively married to an obscure Handel opera from 1 °C — one of a pair of grad students there was working on a thesis about the prolific composer. On weekends, the squeaking-gate atonalities of her preadolescent violin students had Arthur rushing for earplugs.

Arthur watched the sun die over the Rideau Canal and the lake it fed, a wash of purple and pink. This was the day’s highlight.

He went in, slumped onto a hard sofa, fiddled with a book. He wasn’t used to reading the classics without a roaring fire of alder and fir. Instead, apartment 10B featured that most abhorrent of modern fixtures, an ersatz fireplace, flames flickering around imitation logs. He missed his old club chair that over the years had ungrudgingly accommodated itself to his former rangy shape. The joyous chores of bringing bounty from the land had burned the calories, and when he’d donned his robes for the occasional trial he’d been as fit as Spartacus, ready to take on the Roman legions.

Perhaps, he thought wishfully, some crisis had newly occurred at Blunder Bay that would demand his return. For instance, Stoney and McCoy jailed for packing Purple Passion into the Berlin-bound sculpture.

He was hesitant to call Zack and Savannah during evenings, he always seemed to be interrupting something: dinner, a quarrel, a meeting. They were forever holding meetings. Savannah picked up.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

“Not at all,” she said, good natured, used to his fussy intrusions. “A few friends are over from Vancouver. Coastal Forest Coalition.”

He could hear loud conversation, sounding of more than a few friends. “Nothing to report, I take it?”

“No, everything’s going wonderfully. How’s Margaret?”

A little paranoid, he wanted to say. The klutz in the black coat had finished a wine, then wandered away without another look at them. “Splendid. Tireless in the struggle. Animals are well? The garden?”

“We’re eating from it. Everything is lovely, Arthur, we’re so glad to be here.”

Arthur found himself more depressed than ever. From the flat next door, a stagy roar: “I will never retire! I will never give way!” Ibsen, Arthur suspected. The male partner of the Handel scholar was studying theatre, and could often be heard emoting through the thin walls.

Dear Hank, Mom, Katie, Cassie, Jessie ,

Well, I finally got a chance to put my feet up. Those dogs are tired! We just got back from touring the old market of Samarkand. Some people in our group dropped out, went back to the bus. All terribly ancient, the Silk Route, it goes back to the second century BC, silk, perfumes, spices and incense and gems. Pretty bleak here, though, in Uzbekistan. Tomorrow Tashkent. Almaty in Kazakhstan after that. (Don’t worry, Exotic Asia Tours doesn’t stop in Afghanistan!) I hope you girls are doing your homework and not keeping your grandma from her nap with your screaming guitars. Love you, Dr. Hank. Love you, kids. You’d do really well here, Mom, your Russian is so good, here it’s like everyone’s second language. Maxine and I get by. Back in a week .

Love, Jill XOXO

Clara Gracey told her driver to pump up the heat. Winter had come in late November with a frigid blast from somewhere north of Baffin Bay. But her prayer for a traffic-snarling snowfall hadn’t been answered, so she lacked a credible excuse for skipping tonight’s bash for the Bhashies.

The visitors, eight large, ruddy-faced males, had arrived yesterday on an old Ilyushin 62, trooping off in identical bear coats and bear hats. They were ready for the weather, unlike Clara, who hadn’t brought a sweater or jacket, just this flimsy coat. In the political life, fashion rules, style over comfort and warmth.