Sussex Drive: A Novel (12 page)
“Will there be music?”
“Yes,” Becky said. “Holy hymns.”
“I’ll sing.”
“Yes.”
“I sang when my mama left.”
Becky knew this wasn’t the case, but now wasn’t the time to rewrite the family mythology he was fabricating. It was his Colombian piece.
Pablo pressed against her.
Greg came in the back door and saw them. “Pablo—” he started.
Becky turned herself and Pablo so that their backs faced him. She didn’t care who saw—Doc, security, the Toronto
Blob
.
She heard the despair in his footsteps as he walked back outside. Everything was a disaster. Her mother’s dinner. The family. The election. The smell of the cooking bird permeating her brain. The death of her child’s pet and her husband’s unconscionable behaviour and the imminent abortion.
She stepped into the bathroom with her cellphone. Apoonatuk immediately picked up her call. “Original,” she said.
Martha took the dose of mifepristone at the airport, with a few sips of Dasani. On the flight, she held the cooler
containing the dead gerbil in her lap. Becky sat beside her in the rear of the jet, far away from Lise, Niko and her staff at the front. Lise was wearing her reading glasses and pretending to pore over a huge black binder. Margaret Lee had run her solicitous interference. Becky told her to thank Lise for the lift, and Margaret reported that Lise had said,
“De rien.”
The GG was obviously still overly miffed about ArtsCAN!
Peter had opted to stay in Whitehorse in order to accompany his dad to the poll the next morning and miss school, and, Becky suspected, to skip the melodrama of the gerbil funeral. The PMO was in rewrite to explain the absences of Becky, Martha and Pablo at the historic event tomorrow—and were flying in Greg’s parents from Thunder Bay. Becky couldn’t stand Greg’s stepmother, Rose the martyr, who was sliding into early Alzheimer’s and continually misidentified Becky as Greg’s first fiancée, the compulsively glum Nina. “I’m so happy to see you,” Rose would say. “You don’t seem down.” Becky had given up on setting her straight, and besides, from what she’d heard from Greg, Nina had been Becky’s exotic opposite with her butt-length black tresses and Salvadoran heritage—sharing only a penchant for dresses, preferably white and sleeveless, for God’s sake.
Grief-stricken Pablo was asleep on Becky’s other side, knocked out by a slyly potent melatonin she carried for jet lag.
Corporal Shymanski, whom Becky had hoped would be dispatched elsewhere, sat beside Niko, playing Nintendo DS. Taylor kept staring at Martha, and Martha stared back, until
finally Becky had to insist that she wear a sleep mask. Then she slid one on too, and promptly dozed.
When she woke up, Martha wasn’t beside her. Becky looked around wildly.
Martha balanced herself in the rear of the Challenger. Corporal Shymanski was with her, his head close, a hand pressed against the magazine rack.
Becky couldn’t help herself. She unbuckled her seat belt and took three steps. “Excuse me,” she said.
Martha and Shymanski turned toward her. Both had tears in their eyes.
“Excuse me,” she said. “There’s going to be turbulence and Martha needs to sit down right now.”
“Madame Leggatt,” Shymanski said.
“Mom, please give us a minute.”
“Sit down,” Becky said, “now.”
Martha obeyed immediately, seating herself back by the window, and promptly covered her damp eyes with the sleep mask. Her shoulders shook.
“This is not human,” Corporal Shymanski said to her. He was smouldering, as if she’d displayed effrontery beyond measure.
“Take accountability,” Becky said. “You’re the man. She’s a girl.”
“I’m not talking about Martha,” he said. “It is about the government. Your government.” He made his unique way to the front of the cabin to join the rest of the GG’s dozing security team.
The drive to 24 Sussex was rote, silent and slow, with the Ottawa darkness everywhere. By the time Martha was asleep, and Pablo nested in, snug in his hot-air balloon pyjamas, beside Becky in the master bedroom, and the staff had stored Señor Wuzzy in the empty fridge, Becky had brushed, flossed and surfed all the RSS feeds and news channels. The coverage of the Official Opposition leader’s massacre of basic Canadian English on this particular occasion was phenomenal; the seed had been planted. What if he couldn’t understand a question at the Security Council? What if it was World War III? Would you want him representing us on the world stage? Could he connect with intergalactic aliens? They had been fed the doubt with double helpings of turkey, dressing, cranberry, mashed potatoes and pie à la mode. God bless Can Vox.
It was freezing the next morning: election day. After the short private funeral, Becky ordered the car, packed their bags, and she, Martha and Pablo headed up to the Harrington Lake house. They stopped at Pharmasave while Becky ran in and bought extra overnight pads; she already had the painkillers with codeine. The hills were frigid with frost. Ski hills talcumed. She convinced herself that she was voting—for her family.
The house was freshly dusted, with a full larder. She settled Pablo into a marathon
Land Before Time
rotation and shook out the misoprostol for Martha. The cramps started
immediately and the bleeding was heavy. Martha squeezed in beside her brother and Becky covered them both with a Hudson’s Bay blanket. Outside, the inukshuk stood with its stunted stone arms.
That night, Becky watched Greg, accompanied by Peter and Greg’s father, as he made a few unmemorable remarks about the overwhelming endorsement of the Conservatives. Blue streamers fell, and Peter managed to look delighted and surprised—and even slightly ADHD? Greg’s dad was predictably humble; how had he produced this magnificent and puffy dump of DNA? Indeed.
Minority. Minority. Minority
.
CANADA
Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan
Comité spécial sur la mission canadienne en Afghanistan
EVIDENCE number 1
,
Témoignages du comité numéro 1
REDACTED COPY – COPIE RÉDACTÉ OCTOBER 23, 2008
Document Number/Numéro du document: D – 711 – 358 Receipt Date/Date:
Redacted by: AG
A
WEEK AFTER
G
REG’S
Minority Resurrection, Becky ventured to the National Arts Centre for the ArtsCAN! gala. Incognito. She didn’t tell Greg; she wore a Sudbury nickel ball gown and a long dark witch’s cloak, and entered through a side door after the gin- and bling-saturated reception and speeches, which avoided directly addressing the arts and culture cuts inflicted by Greg. She hunched in the lighting booth far above the sold-out house. She was there when Gordon Lightfoot performed “The Great Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” and the crowd sang the words by heart, and she cracked up with everyone when Itzhak Perlman introduced Cohen as “that old Jew,” and Leonard then sang “The Future” and received a standing ovation. She did the disappearing act when Lise, in an indigenous Bjork-like gown glued together from goose feathers and cedar bark, delivered her closing remarks about the integrity and longevity of Canadian culture.
In less than two minutes she was home, and Greg, in his Research in Motion hoodie, halted her right at the door. His fingers were dusty with Doritos and he was livid. “Let’s talk in my study.”
She was ready. “About?”
“You know what
about
.”
He turned and walked ahead of her up the grand staircase, past
The Painted Flag
. Becky took her time, lifting the thin, flirty hem of her dress. His tread was heavy. It was his executioner’s gait, and so she didn’t wait for him to launch when they walked into his dimly lit lair.
“I don’t care about your”—finger quotes—”feelings re the gala. You embarrassed me in front of folks I cultivated assiduously, and you threw away years of our work, particularly in Quebec, indulging in petty comments and cuts. So don’t bludgeon me now.”
Greg installed himself behind his desk, which was clear enough to reflect the portrait of Prime Minister Diefenbaker at his back. The boss. “Wedge issues win.”