Joshua Then and Now (53 page)

Starting back to his car – walking, not running – he was overcome with both relief and disappointment.
You did. You didn’t. Ancient history
. But
my
ancient history, damn it. He paused to set his wristwatch to Montreal time. Home time. Family time.

Mueller has been robbed of eighteen hundred dollars in traveler’s checks
.

He’s lying
.

Everybody’s lying but you
, Mariano said.

Jack Trimble assured me you made all the decisions
.

He made a point of telling everybody that. He knew what was coming. He was lying
.

Everybody’s a liar but you
, Joshua said.

And what, he thought, if Kevin was telling the truth? Absolutely impossible. All the same, he was Pauline’s brother. The senator’s only son. He would have to be helped.
I will be Victorio
, Joshua thought.
I will be the honest fisherman. I will cast my net into the water and bring out sufficient fish to feed my family. My loved ones
.

Back in his hotel room, exhilarated, he poured himself a stiff Scotch. He decided that he would not write a new introduction to
The Volunteers
. That was from another time, another place. Let it rest. He put through a call to Pauline and was able to reach her after only an hour’s delay. “Pauline, my love, I’ve been trying to reach you for three days. How are you?”

No answer.

“Darling?”

“Kevin’s dead,” she said in a wobbly voice. “His plane crashed.”

“What?”

“He’s killed himself.”

“Pauline, I’ll come as fast as I can. I’ll grab the first plane out of here.”

“Oh, Joshua, why couldn’t we have helped him?”

R
EUBEN MET HIM AT THE AIRPORT AND DROVE HIM
right out to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where Pauline lay in bed, heavily sedated.

“Don’t worry,” Reuben said. “She’ll be home in a few days.”

The newspaper accounts of the crash did not suggest suicide, but an accident. A mechanical failure. Kevin had not filed a flight plan, but apparently had just taken his Beechcraft up for a spin to relax his nerves. It had been cold, but clear. Later there was some light snow. He had crashed into Owl’s Head mountain on Lake Memphremagog. Dying on impact. Neck broken. Back smashed. He was forty-two years old. The newspaper accounts described him as the only son of Senator Stephen Andrew Hornby, and observed that Kevin had once been a sportsman of note. A one-time McGill Redman. An outstanding hockey player. Tennis player of considerable accomplishment. A former Quebec Amateur Golf Champion. Latterly a prominent broker and man-about-town, who was under investigation by the securities commission at the time of his death. Foul play was not suspected.

“Did he leave a note?” Joshua asked.

“No, but Pauline’s convinced he committed suicide.”

“God damn it, she didn’t need this. Neither did the senator.”

“Or Kevin,” Reuben said sharply.

“O.K., O.K.”

“What do you think?”

“He didn’t want to go to prison. They don’t dress for dinner there.”

Reuben looked at him, surprised. “What have you got against him?”

The days stretched into weeks and then one morning Joshua wakened, hung over again, to the chilling realization that Pauline had now been in the hospital for almost a month, wasting. Although his debts were mounting and his hockey book, hardly begun, was already long overdue, he couldn’t work. He was spending far too much of his time at The King’s Arms. And one afternoon, surprisingly, his cousin Sheldon sought him out there. Before he could even join Sheldon at his table, The Flopper looked down from his customary stool at the bar and called Joshua to his side. “Who’s the fancy fella?” he asked.

“He’s no fancy fella. He’s my cousin.”

“Lookit, peckerhead, whoever he is, I betcha he never pissed in a hotel sink.”

Poor Sheldon had once been the most promising of his generation of Leventhals. An unrecognized Quiz Kid. One day president of the Junior Red Cross; the next, a star on the McGill campus. Stroke, stroke, stroke. Graduating
cum laude
, the family pride. And now, twenty-five years later, his face fleshy but his beard trim, his fingernails manicured, reeking of a leathery cologne, Sheldon was big in storm windows, his father-in-law’s business.

“Are you enjoying it?” Joshua asked.

“Storm windows?”

“Well then, why don’t you try plumbing?” Joshua suggested, shooting him a fierce look.

But Sheldon didn’t catch the reference. “I don’t care for the direction this country is taking,” he said. “I’ve published eight letters to the editor of the
Star
in the past two years. Have you read them?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“They are widely admired. Lots of people have complimented me on them. Complete strangers. Gentiles among them.” Sheldon leaned forward to press Joshua’s arm, his eyes imploring. “I’d like to get into punditry. I want to be a pundit. Help me, Josh.” And he unclicked his attaché case and thrust two columns at him. One was about Israel, the other dealt with Quebec. The first column began: “ ‘What is truth?’ asked Pontius Pilate.” Joshua giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Sheldon, you once made a big mistake in your life. You should have let me play with your Lionel train set. We could have taken turns operating it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Go away,” he said. “Please go away,” and he quit the table, watching poor Sheldon flee, embarrassed.

Shapiro, you are indeed an abomination, Joshua thought, as he drifted back to join the regulars at the bar: Roger, Robbie, The Flopper. The Flopper was expounding on the injustice of the prodigious sums now being paid to untried juniors, venturing that even Guy Lafleur would never have been such a star in the old six-team league. “Lookit,” he said, “half of his goals are scored against the Minnesota No-Stars or the California Seal Pups.” He was willing to acknowledge, however, that even he had benefited from expansion. A few years back, fifty years old but owning up only to forty-two, he had been briefly reactivated, earning big money for the first time in his career with the Miami Screaming Eagles. “The trouble with the Eagles,” he readily admitted, “was we only played positional when we lined up outside room four-oh-eight in the Ramada Inn, in Edmonton, to be blown by Miss Rita Kowalchuk, a great hockey fan.”

Drinking himself to bed each night, Joshua became obsessed with the notion that he was waking each morning with fewer gray cells than he had gone to sleep with. Cherished little cerebral circuits
shorting or expiring every night, flooded by alcohol. Then one night, as he lay half asleep on his sofa, the phone rang, jolting him. It was Jane Trimble, unable to find him at The King’s Arms, standing on his doorstep a half-hour later. “Well,” she said, “Sir Galahad at home.” Sweeping past him into the study, relieving him of his Scotch in passing. “I thought you’d be undressed. How disappointing!”

“Damn it, Jane, what do you want here at this hour?”

“Not that,” she said, surprising him with a cool hand between his legs. “But, oh my. You’re not as indifferent as you pretend.”

Joshua broke free to pick up the phone.

“Who are you calling, darling?”

“Jack, to come and get you.”

“Joshua and Jack. Jack and Joshua. How different you are. He was absolutely thrilled to be accepted by the old crowd, and you think you’re doing us a favor just by tolerating us from time to time. St.-Urbain-boy
oblige
. You’re also far more attracted to me than you admit, but you wouldn’t want to hurt Pauline. On a scale of one to ten, how am I doing?”

“Lousy,” he replied with too much anger, starting to dial their number on the phone again.

“Jack can’t come to get me. He’s in Toronto.”

“I’ll call a taxi, then.”

“You call a taxi and I’m going to get out of my clothes,” she said, flicking her tongue at him as she unbuttoned her blouse and slithered out of it.

Joshua ducked into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. She followed, which infuriated him, because he was stirred by the sight of her creamy breasts all but popping out of her slip of a bra. “Put on your blouse. One of the kids might come down.”

“And discover us necking?
Ca, alors”

“I’ll drive you home, if you like.”

“I don’t like. And neither,” she shouted, “do I wish to be humiliated, you fuck. You arrogant prick. Just who do you think you are?”

“Now you lower your goddamn voice, or I’ll pick you up and shove you out in the snow just as you are.”

“Why, I’ll bet you would,” she said, sinking to the sofa, her skirt riding up. Tears rolled down her cheeks, smearing her eye shadow. “We used to walk home from
ECS
together, smoking Sweet Caps, Pauline and I. Oh God.”

“How’s Jack?”

“How’s Jack? Everybody’s treating him like shit. All he ever did was make money for them, those fools, and now they blame him for Kevin’s suicide. We’re ruined, both of us. I want more,” she said, thrusting her glass at him.

He poured her another drink.

“Remember the night of our champagne dinner on the lake? Jack oozing good feeling. ‘Kevin is joining my firm,’ ” she said, mocking his accent. “Weren’t you surprised, old son?”

“Let’s just say it was not exactly my idea of a fun evening.”

“Jack drove into town that morning and wasn’t supposed to return until five.
Malheureusement
, he was back at four and saw us together.”

“You and Kevin.”

“Me and Kevin. We were going to get married once, but I backed off, frightened. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” she said, leaning over for him to light her cigarette, “but I was concerned about the closeness of his relationship with Pauline. Does that trouble you?”

“Immensely. But I try to be brave.”

“Really, I was very pleased when she married you, because for a time there I thought she’d never find a man who could displace Kevin in her affections.”

“Ah, but aren’t you sweet? I think Pauline is blessed in having you for a friend. Now, just between us, when did you first start slipping down to Bermuda to see Kevin?”

“It was only once, and I was with somebody else at the time. Dickie Abbott, does that surprise you? We ran into Kevin by accident.”

“And you immediately said, ‘Hey there, Kevin baby, why don’t you fly up to the lake and visit your sister? She seems happy. Let’s see what we can do about that.’ ”

“I most certainly did not suggest that he come up here.”

“Neither did you sweet-talk poor Jack into taking him on.”

“As a matter of fact, no, I didn’t. It was Jack’s idea.”

“And he also suggested that the two of you ought to have an affair, if only for old times’ sake.”

“I thought that might bother Pauline,” she said, her smile provocative, “but I didn’t dare to hope that it would make you jealous.”

“I was thinking of Jack.”

“Jack worshipped Kevin. He’s everything he ever wanted to be.”

“I’d like to know what really happened that afternoon.”

“Jack and I quarreled at breakfast. Over Charlie again. And then he drove into town, leaving me alone with Kevin. Well, not alone. There were the kids. But Kevin sent them off to the sailing club, and when I still didn’t emerge from my bedroom, he brought me lunch on a tray. We talked about the old days and how difficult it used to be to shake Pauline, if only to find time to be alone. He told me how I was even more beautiful now, if possible, than I had been then. And naturally he tried to climb into bed with me, but I wasn’t having any of it. Shit, I had to lock the bathroom door in order to get dressed. He followed me everywhere I went in the house like a puppy, flattering, pawing, trying to steal kisses. Doesn’t that have a nice Victorian sound? He told me that in all our years apart he had never found another woman who was my equal. It was embarrassing, very embarrassing, and so I made an excuse about having to check out something in the boathouse, and I suggested that he join me for a swim afterwards. Anything to cool him off. And the next thing I knew, he sneaked up behind me in the boathouse, unknotted my bikini strap, and was all over me, like a sex-starved teenager. When I finally shook him off, I saw that Jack’s Jaguar was parked at the top of the hill. Obviously, he had seen us together and misunderstood.”

“Are you sure Jack saw you together?”

“He must have seen us.”

“Why didn’t he throw Kevin out, then?”

“Oh dear. How I’ve overestimated you. You don’t understand Jack at all, do you? He’s crazy. Don’t you know that?”

Like a fox, possibly, Joshua thought.

“I’m sure you’ve often wondered why a woman as intelligent and beautiful as I am ever married Jack in the first place.”

“Yes. Often. It’s something I really brood about. If he’s crazy, why don’t you leave him?”

“And just what would I do, an older woman like me? Get a job serving at Holt’s? Set up as a call girl in Cantlie House? He’s got a weak heart. He won’t live forever, old son.
In vino Veritas
,” she said, thrusting out her glass for more.

He poured her a stiff one this time. “Jane, I want to ask you something,” he said earnestly.

“The answer’s obvious,” she said, reaching out to stroke his thigh.

“I want to know,” he said, squeezing her hand, “if you ever saw Kevin sign Coral papers for Jack without reading them?”

“No,” she replied impatiently.

“Did he know what was really going on at Coral?”

“If you mean, was it all Jack’s doing, I’m sorry, darling, I wish I could help, but the answer is no.”

“I just don’t believe Kevin would actually set out to swindle his old friends.”

“How can you be so dense? Kevin, my darling, never set out to do anything in his life. But there was all that money there and he helped himself to some. Like candy in a jar. And then Jack wanted to look over the accounts and he tried to cover by making risky investments. They didn’t jell. He panicked. He reached into the jar again. He made even riskier investments. But he didn’t set out to actually do anybody harm. He never did. Neither could he ever face the music,” she-said, holding out her glass again.