Becky remained standing.
“This isn’t about any finger-quote feelings.” Middle finger. “Or your finger-quote gala.”
Becky took a breath. Okay, then no need to confess she’d sequestered herself in the lighting booth, engaging in entertainment espionage on the national and corporate elites. “Then what?”
He stared at her as if he might actually take action. Her tissues, her muscles, seemed to recollect the kicking-the-gerbil-cage
moment and her heartbeat sped up. In the same way she knew where every washroom in Ottawa and Gatineau was located, so did she know the site of every panic button at 24 Sussex, the Langevin Block and Greg’s Centre Block office. She’d never considered, though, that she might push it because of her trepidation re him.
“Martha,” Greg said.
He leaned back and folded his hands in his lap. He kept interlacing his fingers different ways, the way he did when he was awkwardly posed in an Asian preschool or gurdwara kindergarten. He looked uncomfortable, as if he were talking to the TV news anchor he most despised. Then he was faux friendly to her, a warning. “I sat down with our oldest child tonight. Asked if she’d like to perform in
Temptations
at the 2010 Olympics.”
Adrenalin shot up Becky’s stem and her arms were flooded. “And?”
“She fricking lost it.”
“How so?”
“Said she didn’t deserve to participate in a gospel rock opera.” Greg stopped there.
Becky stayed still.
“So I asked why. Why would a beautiful, innocent girl like herself not deserve this?”
“Right,” Becky said. She noticed that the ridiculous floral curtains were drawn, which was unusual. She had to stand and be able to move quickly, manoeuvre.
“Do you know what she said, Rebecca?”
Becky shook her head.
“She told me she was a murderer.” Becky watched Greg finger the family portrait, the one with the very heavy pewter frame, a gift from Chancellor Angela Merkel on the occasion of the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan. “She said, ‘Dad, Dad, I don’t know how to tell you this. I killed my child.’ ” He paused. “ ‘Your grandchild.’ ” Greg’s eyes were fierce and reddened. “Is that true, Rebecca?”
“Greg,” she said. Then she just nodded.
He hurled the frame directly at her, and she was only five feet away. Becky ducked, which probably helped her miss Greg’s second throw of a dancing soapstone polar bear, personally carved by the oldest Canadian shaman, because she instinctively stayed low and zigzagged while bolting for the hall. She slammed the study door behind her. “I’m pressing the button,” she said, her voice ragged and bass. “If you come near me, I don’t care what happens.”
His phone rang then. Through the door, she heard him pick up.
“Hey, Bob, yeah.” A pause. “Yes, we’re throwing the furniture around tonight.” Pause. “Right, yes, better than an ulcer.” Nasal snicker. “Well, you know what the little women are like with the crockery. It gets busted. You take care now. Good night, Bob.”
Becky didn’t wait. She slipped off her heels and flew downstairs. In a few minutes she had barricaded the living room and set herself up on the couch. She didn’t care if she slept in her ball gown, covered with her witch’s cloak,
holding the metronome from the grand piano with the panic button electronically stitched to the bottom.
If only the Corpse’s top comedian could see her now. He’d held a fake sleepover with Greg and Peter a few years back, all running amok at the Diefenbunker, and he’d yelled to Greg, “I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal, husha, husha, we all fall down.” Then Greg had locked them in. Peter had panicked. The comedian had become very irate and ratings for the show went through the roof. Maybe you had to be there.
She woke up at three in the morning. She smelled something burning, and was disoriented, not knowing where she was, or even who she might be. For a minute she thought she was back in her parents’ home, lying very low in her old room after a parental debacle.
She looked up to see Greg standing over her in his ridiculous pyjamas. She didn’t know why he couldn’t wear bottoms and a T-shirt the way her first husband had. He wore Joe Fresh checkered flannels, and it was a distinctly unattractive look, unless she actually wanted to jump the bones of Beaver Cleaver’s dad, and he was also holding a plate of scorched toast. Anger. Hunger. The lethal combo pack. She had mentioned this to him in the past, pre-campaigns.
He spat at her. “Who was the father?”
She said, very evenly, “I am holding the alarm. If you trust your thugs to keep this out of the
National Pest
, so be it.”
He was silent, just breathing over her.
“I’ll find out,” he said, and left her alone in the room. And then, “What kind of mother are you?”
Ten days later, on the afternoon of Halloween, in the midst of costume preparations for Lise’s Gory Horror at Rideau Hall—a macabre event for younger Rockcliffe Park denizens, trick-or-treaters and Niko—Becky received an e-mail from Pablo’s teacher. The teacher wanted to talk, the sooner the better, about changes in Pablo’s behaviour at school. Becky understood that to mean
today
. So she put aside Peter’s Mountie costume, cobbled together from the crew around Sussex Drive, and Pablo’s easy-peasy Zorro, and saddled up and called Ms. Humphries, confirming 3:30 p.m. at the classroom. Peter and Pablo could be dispatched to the librarian and be pressed into service filing books in the stacks.
She considered calling Greg to let him know about this latest development, but it was four days before the U.S. election and he was on the blower to George Bush, and to both John McCain and Sarah Palin too, trying to broker a truce between them, and the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. also seemed to need constant tranquilizing. Greg was so suspicious he even thought the Democratic presidential candidate had authorized euthanasia for his dear old Kansasvia-Oahu grandmother in order to get a sympathy bump, and asked that
CSIS
do some quick and dirty undercover in Hawaii toward that end. (Becky had heard about this from Doc.) How about that headline for November 3?
OBAMA GRANNY: MURDER OR MERCY KILLING?
Greg was talking the
ambassador down, promising future glory in a new post as well as pumping him for every nugget of intel. Becky had her own sources for all this, none of whom knew that the PM and his wife weren’t currently connubial.
It was going to be Greg and the European neo-cons—he counted Gordon Brown and New Labour as bastard Tories—against lightweight Rudd in Australia and the Columbia University–Harvard Law community organizer and, coincidentally, son of a Kenyan goatherd professor.
So Becky understood why Greg was upset: he was pro-life, big time, whole hog, and this was his first-born, his angel daughter, with her name drawn from Biblical nomenclature, and his own wife had not involved him in this crisis. Also, there was somebody out there, a punk with an erection, a jerk who ejaculated, who had violated the virgin daughter of the Prime Minister of Canada. It was incomprehensible to Greg that this could have happened, be happening, at the same time that it was basically him and the European barrel-o’-monkeys versus the ascendancy of Chocolate Jesus versus Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, Chávez et al. Greg didn’t know where to turn, and Becky expected he was having long conversations, when he could manage them, with Pastor Grant in Kelowna.
She was giving him space. She was marking time. She was praying for discernment. She was loving the children, who, in her eyes, were becoming rapaciously needy.
At the elementary school, Becky’s conversation with Ms. Humphries, a
nouveau
hippie with red polka-dot triangle
stuck to her head, gladiator sandals on her callused feet and sparkly scarf that kept catching in the queue of sheeted ghosts hung off a clothesline across her desk, was informative. Pablo refused to take part in the Skeleton Boogie, a dance number they’d been working on for weeks, because it made him miss his mother and extended family. He’d fled the rehearsal and Ms. H. had found him crying in the cloakroom. Being an “attuned” teacher—her words—Ms. H. realized Pablo was talking about his biological family in Colombia.
Becky told Ms. H. how much she appreciated her input. She said the family inevitably wore a mantle of duty, reflecting the role of the PM, and it could sometimes be overwhelming for the children, as they became more aware of the media and people’s expectations of their father, particularly. She also mentioned the recent death of Pablo’s gerbil.
Ms. H. revealed that Pablo had talked about the sudden demise of Señor Wuzzy. Becky steeled herself.
He’d told her the gerbil had been whacked, but wasn’t willing to confide the identity of the perp. He also wanted his own room away from Peter and refused to discuss it further.
Becky could tell that Ms. H. thought Peter had committed the crime of gerbil passion, and Becky herself hyper-reacted into fight-or-flight mode. She thanked Ms. H. again, looked at her watch, coughed and said, “To be continued,” as she fled into the hall. She dropped over the water fountain, pushing her mouth up against the spigot, where a dribble appeared. Before heading into the library, now virtually empty of kids, with only one large overhead light still left on, she watched
through the window in the door. Peter manhandled a trolley of books and was ramming it repeatedly into a reading table, knocking those tall picture books out like big cement greeting cards onto the floor. Under that same table, Pablo was folded up, butt tucked in, covering his head.
Becky shoved open the door. “Peter!” she yelled. “Cease and desist.” She scooped Pablo up and ruffled his hair.
By the time Becky landed back at 24 Sussex with the boys, they had to rush into early supper and costume-prep for Gory Horror. Martha was watching Sarah Palin and her family on CNN. The very pregnant Bristol was in her final trimester and Levi, the adolescent common-law progenitor who resembled a young Donny Osmond, rested his hand on her stomach and shared a giggle with her. Peter dug into his spaghetti and Becky took Pablo aside to spend some quality time with him.
“I don’t want to go over to Niko’s,” he said, his accent rendering his apprehension more dire to Becky’s maternal ears.
Martha abruptly left the room.
“Why, darlin’?”
“Don’t.”
“Why, amigo?”
“Scary it will be.”
“Maybe you should go as Yoda.”
No response.
Becky found herself submerged in a domestic emo sinkhole. Could nothing just proceed normally? Such as: children
eat nutritious meal, do homework, say prayers, disappear for twelve hours?
Becky headed upstairs to check on Martha. She was in her bedroom watching Greg on her laptop screen. He played guitar and earnestly sang “Hey Eve,” which sounded like a Beatles tune. “What’s up, honeybee?” Becky asked.
“I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Martha said, not looking at her.
“About what?” Becky said, although she knew. “I saw you were watching Sarah Palin’s girl.”
“They seem happy, Mom. Bristol takes care of baby Trig. Levi supports her in having their own baby.”
Becky bent down beside her and gave Martha a long hug. She reeked of Angel, a perfume Greg had sent a minion to buy from the Bay to score paternal points. Becky knew Martha hadn’t been in touch with Corporal Shymanski because Becky was now monitoring her phone and all Internet communications. Martha had willingly allowed this. “It’s natural to have regrets, Martha. Truly.”
Martha said, “Why didn’t you help me, Mom?” On screen, she paused her father, mouth frozen wide. “Why did you let me lose the baby?”
“We made the best decision on the day, Martha.” Becky was flummoxed.
“But it wasn’t the best for me. That’s what Dad says.” Although Martha and Greg now appeared to be in agreement on this, Martha hadn’t ever disclosed Shymanski’s identity to her father. She knew better than to do that.
“It may not feel like it right now—”
“I hate myself.”
“Martha—”
“And if I go over to Rideau Hall, I’ll see
him
—”
“Then stay home,” Becky said, exhausted. “Hang with Pablo. Help Daddy with the Republicans. I’ll take Peter over to the Gory Horror.”
Becky herself was apprehensive about running into Corporal Shymanski, whom she hadn’t seen since the showdown in the Challenger when he made his peculiar remarks about the government. But she knew that her best strategy on every front was to behave as if everything was
normal
. She’d advised Martha to let things simmer down, for sure. She knew instinctively that if she intervened, or forbade her daughter to see him, or, God forbid, revealed his identity to Greg, then a crisis would be incited that knew no boundary.
“Okay, Mom,” Martha said pensively. “You can wear my costume if you want. It’s roomy.”
Becky heard Greg strumming again and singing the refrain, “Faa La Fa La Fa La Faa Fa La Fa La Hey Eve.”
As soon as Becky and Peter stepped out of the car, Peter, in his petite red serge, took off with a howling Niko, in werewolf fur. Becky, in Martha’s Maid Marian costume—dark green dress and long blond wig—wandered through the torchlit grounds, sniffing burnt pumpkin. Security melted away. It was a reprieve to be wearing a costume; she was
saluted as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Pamela Anderson Wench—hello!
The entrance to Rideau Hall, which of itself reminded Becky of a squat tomb, was bathed in orange light, and flying ghost silhouettes were projected skittering in a frenzy across the facade. “Monster Mash” played over and over from speakers suspended in the Norah Michener perennial garden. Lise, in her cat suit and whiskers, meowed in French and Becky wouldn’t have been surprised if her personal witch’s brew had been upgraded by the in-house sommelier. A vampire on stilts stalked by, and the neighbourhood children, lugging shopping bags and king-size pillowcases of candy, ran screaming after him. Lise announced that a séance would be held in Lady Byng’s rockery in fifteen minutes.
The nocturnal carnival slowly overwhelmed Becky: the masked hordes, the feral kids in
Lord of the Flies
makeup, the nerve-fraying explosions of distant Mighty Mites. She was also wearing Maid Marian’s thin eco-green gloves, and her own hands, in the flickering lights, resembled interplanetary appendages, flesh grafted onto her earthly form. There was the chill spilling out from the sugar bush, and she walked back down the length of the main entrance, away from Rideau Hall, toward Rockcliffe Parkway and the Prime Minister’s residence, a stone’s throw, really.