British Airways Flt 034, to London, August
Leland is remembering the play of light on Jay’s shoulders, her sleek head breaking green water. And in the speedboat, how the kids laughed at his panic — “Stop! she’s falling, Christ!” “No, man she’s just dropping the ski, she’s going slalom” — and there she was, skimming the lake, grinning, raising rainbowed arcs of water at the outer curve of each graceful turn.
He did not know that water could be so cold. After immersion in such water, nothing looks so pitiful as a man’s private parts and nothing tastes so good as a hot cup of tea. She does not know who Alan Bennett is. She’s never heard of Beyond the Fringe. He is keeping a list for her: an imperial education, she calls it, and claims she does not need to know such things, she will know them if her curiosity is adequately piqued. She seems oddly content with her . . . context, her limited view. This puzzles him, frankly. How could she not want to know what any literate person, but most particularly any writer, must know? She has such a good mind, a lively soul, how could she be content —
Labour Day, Skookumchuck
A hot and still and clear day, belying summer’s end. Jay sits on the deck with her oldest friend. The boys have gone off to the cliffs in the runabout, so the two women risk an after-dinner joint, just prior to Leland’s taped broadcast on CBC, his eulogy for the Salinger biographer, Ian Hamilton. Which the two of them listen to on the radio balanced on the planks.
Jay wishes she hadn’t smoked that joint. She wishes Leland hadn’t referred to Salinger as “Jerry” quite so often. She wishes his voice didn’t override the softer voice of the other commentator, a man who obviously knew Hamilton better and cared about him more. She wishes that Leland’s comments, in his tribute, this eulogy, would begin less often with the words when I was and I felt then that — When the interview ends, she finds nothing to say. Her friend takes a breath, looks across at the lake. “Well. He’s very well read, isn’t he? That man of yours.”
It’s the joint, it must be. She really really wishes she hadn’t smoked that joint.
From: jmcnair@telus.net
Date: September 15 9:20 AM
Subject: re: Mr. Mackenzie regrets
Hey guy: Good to talk to you last night. Seriously, Leland, no sweat about having to cancel your Thanksgiving visit. Yes, I’m sure you were just dying to sample my legendarily disastrous attempt at a turkey dinner. But I remember what it’s like to be on the home stretch with a manuscript. Keep your head down. Go for it, dude.
Love,
J
From: lcMackenzie@hotmail.com
Date: October 10 11:55 PM
Subject: what I meant was
Well, no of course I don’t have a fucking clue what kind of Scotch Mordecai Richler drank, and as to the identity of the lampooned party in the Atwood story you mentioned I am entirely innocent. Your reaction surprised me, frankly. I was merely recommending a book, Jay. Written by a friend of mine. One that I like very much. The book and the friend, I mean.
Lucille got all fluttery at tea Monday over “setting the date,” by the way. I know you want to keep an eye on your mum, though . . . oh hell. I’ll give you a call this weekend, okay?
With fondest love from your colonial oppressor
L
From: jmcnair@telus.net
Date: October 24 8:10 AM
Subject: the empire whines back
Next time she corners you like that, just tell Lucille you’ve decided not to marry me because you realized that I’d make a shitty wife. Tell her that you know this because I said to you, recently, “I’d make a really shitty wife.” And actually, I did make a fairly shitty wife, you know. Well, I was good at some parts of the job. Fidelity I had no trouble with. Loyalty either. But “adoring” came hard, and “long-suffering” I didn’t do well AT ALL.
I really do think that all this romance stuff gets it backwards: that it’s men who want to be adored. Women just want to be taken seriously.
Let’s just have an affair that lasts forever. What do you say?
Love,
J
From: lcMackenzie@hotmail.com
Date: October 30 11:50 PM
Subject: adorable
It really is absolutely adorable, the way you can use the word “shitty” so many times in a single paragraph. Did you see my piece on Hamilton in the Guardian mag? I’ve gotten good feedback on it here. Sorry to hear of Mara’s turn for the worse, Jay. What do the doctors say? Do you want me to come?
Love,
L