Sussex Drive: A Novel (20 page)

The executive assistant stammered as he announced each caller on the intercom. “Mr. Prime Min-Min-Minister, are you in-in-in for President Bush?” Bush, in his final
weeks in office, was sending Alexander Manson, the fixer Becky and Greg had met at Harrington Lake last August, up by private jet. By now, Becky had ensured that Greg had reneged on every threat in the fiscal update, buttressed by plenty of scrummy chit-chat from Cabinet lackeys about opening the vaults.

And then, a surprise opposition press conference on the Hill, covered, unsurprisingly, by all the broadcasters. Greg sent everybody out of the room but Becky, Doc and Chief, and told the assistant to hold all calls. He actually locked the door.

On the TV screen, a tiny, nondescript table and a plethora of Canadian, provincial and territorial flags. A veritable plantation.

“Count the chairs, boys,” Becky tasked.

“Three,” Greg snapped. “Oh, praise the Lord,
three
. They’ve brought the Separatist!”

Tai Chi, the earnest Liberal, strode into the shot with stapled papers in his shaking hand. Handily defeated in his run for prime minister just shy of two short months ago, he was joined by the Socialist, with his super posture, and—yes, yes, yes—the grim and self-righteous Separatist. They sat down together and faced the press.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, God,” Greg gushed. “The three musketeers. The three stooges. The three fat ladies fucking sing.”

While Tai Chi explained the guts of the agreement—that the Liberals would join a coalition with the Socialists, and
the Separatists would support this coalition for two years on any confidence votes—Greg sank to his knees on the Capital Commission carpet and commended God the Father. His arms waved in holy motion, his eyes shut, and Chief hit the floor as well, to show his great respect. It was harder for Doc to do this, because of some injury incurred during a visit from his Vancouver girlfriend, but he was finally down with Greg and Chief, chin punched into his chest.

On screen, the Socialist added his two red cents: that the coalition would vote non-confidence on the fiscal update and then, since the recounts from the last federal election had barely been tabulated and turned into history, they would present themselves to the Governor General, Her Excellency Lise Lavoie, as soon as she returned from abroad, as a worthy alternative to the current ruling party. Greg, Doc and Chief, heads still bowed, now curved around the TV and gripped hands.

Becky rejoiced too, but there was no time to coast on enemy blunders. She stepped around them and picked up the phone to Larry Apoonatuk. It had been a while. He’d in fact been token fired after the “do-over” Opposition leader incident, and was now with the 24-hour cable news outlet Can TALKS. Failing upward!

“Apoonatuk.”

“It’s Becky.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m on deadline. Call you back.” He hung up in such a way that she knew he wouldn’t.

“Demagoguery isn’t a dirty word,” Alexander Manson said.

His private jet had been grounded in Buffalo, a wicked blizzard, and Greg was on the phone with him. Becky was conferenced in.

“Isn’t a dirty practice. If it’s for the public good. Now take you Canucks. Take your own Declaration or Constitution or whatever. How familiar with it are your Joe Blows? Your Sikhs? Your Chinamen?”

“Not very,” Greg stated.

“My point,” Manson bit. “What do they know? They get their green card. Evade taxes. Rat on terrorists. Hook up cable. And that’s it. The average person doesn’t want to be bothered with the shit we deal with. That’s why they elect us. Appoint us. Anoint us. ‘You deal, and let me get on with
le
sex.
Le
church.
Le
hockey.’ We’re doing a fucking
favour
—”

“I hear you,” Greg said.

“My man’s president for a few more weeks. We don’t want these Communists. We don’t want Hail Mary pass crap.” He paused. “Demagoguery’s a long word. Because demagoguery takes a long time. And it pays long term.”

“I hear you,” Greg said again.

“Good man,” said Manson. “Now take care of that lovely wife, Greg. Or I will.” He chuckled lustily.

Greg glanced at Becky, then away.

“More importantly, tuck that colicky country of yours into bed with some
Happily ever after
. Think Reagan. Works like spit in a pinch.”

Becky watched Monday’s entire Question Period on CPAC. Her husband made it sound as if the socialist hordes were descending upon Ottawa to eviscerate the organs and eat the heart of the country. Or that the coalition was a conspiracy nurtured by Quebec sovereignists who wanted to cut off the testicles of Parliament. He referred to the coalition press conference repeatedly—pointing out that there were no Canadian flags. An election had been held only days earlier, yet they intended to force an unelected Liberal eunuch loser down the throats of Canadians as the new prime minister. That violated federal law. He didn’t say
coup d’état
, because it was French and would confuse the lowest common Conservative denominator. He added that citizens would flood the streets. Armies would get involved, closing borders, and perhaps even malls and liquor stores, which would hit citizens where it hurt.

The press jumped on board, of course. The Corpse knew which side its bread was truly buttered on. Can Vox, with its demands for more specialty channels to the CRTC, cast mild Tai Chi as Genghis Khan. Can TALKS, ditto. The party’s own Conservative pollster was working overtime, phoning citizens in staunchly loyal ridings in every province, and asking red-flag questions, framed with barely perceptible Becky finesses.

Becky couldn’t have been more pleased.

The media, however, couldn’t be completely controlled, and she and Greg were becoming very concerned about academic creep. The constitutional scholars at campuses across
the country had been dragged by the media out of their tome-ridden research tombs, particularly the emeritus tribe, whose outspokenness wouldn’t necessarily impact research dollars awarded to their institutions. Legal beagles, former Governors General, who in their own minds hadn’t really left the throne yet, and Privy Council diehards with an axe to grind flooded the op-eds, letters to the editor, call-in shows, or bought half-page ads to print their unreadable petitions. In one voice, they were on the record stating that the Governor General, Lise Lavoie, could not possibly agree to prorogue Parliament simply because a minority government would be voted down on a confidence motion. It went absolutely against the ingrained grain of the Canadian Constitution.

It didn’t matter that Greg was brilliant in Question Period, and that his ministers had been coached by American pros, every inflection rehearsed and key words repeated until they were programmed into the national psyche. On every TV channel, in every newspaper, on every radio station and partisan blog, a pundit harped and harked back to basics: A minority government could only rule when it had the backing of the opposition. If it didn’t have the confidence of the House, the opposition could approach the Governor General, or vice versa, re the formation of a new government. In fact, Greg Leggatt had asserted the exact same principle himself, one short Governor General ago, when he led the opposition. The principle started to take hold, amidst the Tory hysteria.

“We need to change the conversation,” Becky told Greg.

Becky had Greg’s aides check with
CSIS
, CSE and the RCMP to see if any terrorist investigations were ripe for arrests, charges, revelations—any big-ticket headlines. It was a no go; even rogue organizations had been impacted by the financial meltdown. A meteorological boss was pressed for imminent natural disasters such as ice storms, tsunamis, the arousal of a dormant volcano or the mass starvation of wild horses due to blizzard conditions. Only scattered flurries.

The deputy minister at Foreign Affairs insisted that on his turf it was still the economy, economy, economy, and the constitutional crisis had given him a chance to catch his breath.

The prospect of a convenient avian flu epidemic had flown the coop.

Greg took to the airwaves, live, on Tuesday night before east coast hockey. Becky was camped beside the director; the cinematographer’s portfolio (he was a special hire) included corporate work for Apple, Ford and Pfizer. Greg began, “Good evening, my fellow Canadians. In the last few days …”

Because it was a political speech running in real time, they couldn’t cut in a sweeping shot of the family photographs on the fireplace mantel, but they made sure Becky and the kids smiled contentedly in the background, and Greg’s
Jesus Christ Superstar
mug was plunked centre stage on his desk, a triple whammy of art, faith and family. Greg’s voice was pitched a tad high, and the stylist had used a shade of lipstick that tilted toward drag, but generally Becky was feeling good.

Then Doc slipped her a copy of Tai Chi’s speech.

It was a short and direct hit, an immediate connect with the cortex and solar plexus of an ordinary Canadian, with appeals to the glory days of Prime Minister Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize, a reminder that the country wisely stayed out of Iraq due to the extrasensory listening skills of the Liberals, of Greg’s amply illustrated totalitarian impulses, and of the legitimate, constitutionally condoned crossroads the country had now arrived at, led by a united, transparent and rational opposition. Tai Chi had the potential to hit this out of the park. Before Greg even concluded his live address to the nation, Becky disappeared from his set-dressed office into the dungeon-like hall and pulled her phone out.

“Larry,” she said.

“Becky.” She could hear Greg’s drone in the background. The country was glued to this; it was almost as big as a Stanley Cup playoff with two Canadian teams.

“You didn’t call me back,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“We’re still BFFs, right?”

“Sure.”

“Larry?”

“What?”

“You’re grumpy.”

“Why would I be grumpy?”

“Yes, why?”

“Especially after delivering an election to your doorstep like Domino’s.”

“Dominoes?”

“Pizza.”

“Ah. Like the House special.”

“The House of Commons special.”

“Funny.”

“Not really.”

“Larry. To the matter at hand. Can TALKS is handling the Liberal leader’s rebuttal, right?”

“Yes. The CBC doesn’t have the crew to handle—”

She didn’t care about the Corpse’s plight. “You’ve read his speech?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s good.”

“It
is
, isn’t it? That’s what I thought.”

Pause.

“It needs to be
not
,” Becky said. “Just saying.”

“I understand,” Apoonatuk said.

“You’ll be at his speech?”

“I’m on site now.”

“You know the crew?”

“They’re mine.”

When she fell silent, Apoonatuk laughed. “Along with a team of interns from Carleton.”

Becky cackled. She never knew she had that in her. “So creative,” she said.

Becky arrived back by Greg’s side as the moody public broadcasting crew traipsed away, bound for the pub with
their inflated paycheques. She gave Greg a peck on the lips—anything to blot that agonizing pink—and he asked if she’d read Tai Chi’s speech.

“It’s hysterical,” she said. “The usual gibberish-fibberish.”

Instead of inviting the gang to stay and watch Tai Chi’s address in the Langevin office, Greg sent Doc, Chief and Clark away. “And take that prick assistant with you,” he demanded.

Becky curled up in a corner of the couch, Greg sat in the armchair, and they watched CTV’s subsidized American programming, sixty minutes of tits and autopsies, while waiting for the main event. In the midst of six commercials, Greg cut to Can TALKS. There was a shot of the main door of the House of Commons, now dramatically padlocked, waiting for Greg to officially prorogue the session with Lise’s consent. A header—
Special Announcement
—sat upon the screen, then disappeared as a custodian pushed a cart into the frame and the broadcaster returned to a Florida orange juice commercial.