Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“Madeleine, this one reeks of you,” says Ron — this is a devious way of sticking her with the actual writing. Writing. Opening a vein in your wrist with a spoon. No one wants to do it—

“He’s right, it stinks of you, McCarthy,” says Tony.

— the sit-down kind, the stuff you do alone, Marlborough-man writing.

“I’d rather apply this salsa to an open wound,” she replies.

Shelly writes on her tablet. “Madeleine … ‘Breaking News’.”

“How come, when it comes to writing stuff down,” Madeleine snarks, reaching for a napkin, “you’re all dylsexic?”

Howard says, “I’m a hemophiliac, if I slip while writing I could die.”

It sounds flippant, but it’s a delicate negotiation: Madeleine taking on the “dirty work,” while the others play down their need of her, keeping resentment in check. In turn, she plays down her ability and pays her dues, contributing to the ensemble to make up for her starturns. It may not be fair — Ron doesn’t pay dues — but the truth is Madeleine can write and, like many writers, will only write with a gun to her head so it’s just as well … plus, this way she gets to be a solo act in the bosom of an ensemble. The best of both worlds. She makes notes on the napkin, then reaches for another. Shelly knows better than to offer a sheet of paper. That would be too much like writing.

Shelly has three kids. Madeleine wishes at times that she were one of them. In a sense, though, she is. All six of them are.

On the way back to their cars in the parking lot of the silent studio, Shelly asks her, “What’ve you got for me?”

“A shameful craving to see you naked but for a clipboard.”

Shelly is like a hard-nosed version of dear old Miss Lang. There are really only about five people in the world.

“I’m not going to talk you into this, Madeleine.”

Shelly has brokered a U.S. network option on Madeleine’s idea for a one-hour special. A pilot for a series starring a real live out-of-the-closet gay comedian called Madeleine. This could be my big bweak, doc . So far she has written three words. The title: Stark Raving Madeleine .

“The others’ve got their own stuff going too, you know,” says Shelly.

“I know.”

It’s inevitable that the After-Threes will evolve careers in their own right. Some have already soloed, and hived off in various combinations for film, TV and live gigs in New York and L.A., making life backstage at After-Three tense, and life on stage even more of a feeding frenzy. Madeleine has wangled a coveted green card, thanks to a recent stint on Saturday Night Live after Lorne Michaels saw her at Massey Hall in Toronto. She entered the bear pit for three adrenal weeks. She wrote and grew pale like the other crypt-dwelling writers. She lost ten pounds and Christine told her she had an eating disorder, but it was pure speed — the metabolic kind. She had an affair by accident — bold production assistant, empty office — but virtuously avoided the coke, the only recreational drug she has ever truly enjoyed. She told Christine about her stalwart abstinence but not, of course, about the headset-wearing drug-substitute who, in the scheme of things, mattered not at all. Really.

Lorne is putting together a new “less famous” cast for next season and has asked her to come back, and bring Maurice, Roger and Lou — lose weight in front of the cameras this time, which, when you’re writing, always seems easier. Her producer, Shelly, has congratulated her but warned her about trying to join “the boys’ club. You’re a dyke,” she says, “so it helps you get buddy-buddy, but you’re not going to sleep with any of them and, no matter how good you are or how much they like you, you’ll never be one of them. You’ve got your own stuff going on, like Lily, except …”

“Except what?”

“She doesn’t need all the crutches and bullshit you do.” Shelly has been pressuring Madeleine to shed the props and costumes.

“What about one-ringy-dingy, what about Edith Anne, the hair, the chair, gimme a break!”

“She doesn’t need that stuff to do them.”

“Well I don’t need the costume to do Maurice—”

“So do him that way.”

“My point is, you can’t do The Cone Heads without cone heads.”

“So do cone-headesque stuff for the rest of your life.”

Regardless of which way Madeleine goes, she is poised to join the “Canadian invasion.” Funny Canucks who head south of the border because, while it’s no longer impossible to get anywhere at home — Canadian-content laws having begun to pay off, not to mention tax breaks that have turned Toronto into Hollywood North — there is no limit to how far you can go by leaving. This makes sense, Canada being small, but performers are also targets of the Canadian syndrome: the cultural inferiority complex that prompts their fellow citizens to confer authenticity on those who blow this northern Popsicle stand. Because, if you’re so great, why are you still here? And its inverse: what kind of lousy Canadian are you, up and leaving like that?

English Canadians; stealth Yankees. Yanks in sheep’s clothing. People who seem perfectly American but who know that Medicine Hat is not an article of apparel. People who can skate, holiday in Cuba and speak high-school French; people who enjoy free health care, are not despised abroad and assume that no one in the restaurant is armed. Cake-eating-and-having Americans. After-Three is straining under the pressure of its own success. Madeleine has no reason to feel guilty.

“It’s not that I feel guilty.”

“Then what?” says Shelly. “Shit or get off the pot.”

“You’re so sensitive and nurturing.”

Shelly’s hand is on the door of her station wagon; she looks exhausted, her kids will be up in six hours, she says to Madeleine, “You’re my pony, you’re the one, I want to see you go for it.”

Madeleine hugs her, wishing she harboured a shameful craving to see Shelly naked but for a clipboard. The fact that Shelly is straight and Madeleine is in a long-term relationship are details they could work out later.

“G’night Momma.”

“G’night Mary Ellen.”

Madeleine gets into her old Volkswagen Beetle. Dirty white eggshell with red interior. She turns the key, coaxing it to life with a prod of the gas pedal, tender release of the choke. She pats the dashboard, “good little car.” She turns on an oldies station and heads home to Christine.

On the way, the thing happens again. When it first happened, a week or so ago, during a live performance, she wrote it off as nerves or flu, or — most reassuring — a small stroke. But what does one call “the thing” when it happens during a drive on a quiet city street, toward home in a light rain?

THE OVER-ARCHING SHAPE OF TIME is always there, like the unseen sunny day above the clouds. And above that endless day, an infinite darkness into which our warp of time loosens and drifts, the slow dispersal of a jet stream.

Ruptures in time. When they lost Mike. When their daughter announced that she was gay. “I know, it’s a horrible word,” said Madeleine, grimacing. “Lesbian . All snaky and scaley.”

Mimi was crying, Jack had compressed his lips and was looking down. Their daughter made a living out of being different, being flippant.

“I’m not taking this lightly,” Madeleine said, biting her lip, grinning. “I feel sick.”

“You feel sick,” said Mimi, “you are sick.”

That was 1979, Mimi remembers the date, two weeks before they got the kitchen redone. Her son ate standing up at that counter, hugged his mother goodbye standing on that spot. Retiled now.