Sussex Drive: A Novel (24 page)

15
 

R
ENÉ STORMED IN THE
Rideau Hall side entrance after ten p.m. He’d been detoured due to the candlelight vigil being held by Conservative staffers, blocking Sussex Drive in the freezing December night. Lise was so relieved to see him that she skipped down the stairs and slid herself into his embrace.

He wasn’t a muscle man, but he leaned in to her, and his spine was Ben Kingsley steel, and he edged his hip between her legs and then dipped, almost raising her off her feet with the force and girth of his quadriceps, and it felt ooh-la-la. His neck, his sweet scent, his lips holding her earlobe.

“I dismiss you,” he said to Corporal Robard. “Begone all ye aides, ye lackeys, ye serfs, ye butlers, ye yeomen, ye maids—on second thought, the maids may stay. No, they must go. I dismiss you, for it is now I must have sweet concord with my dame, my ruler, my liege, my representative of the King, my wife.”

The PMO had summoned René, so that each and every Canadian voter could rest assured that the Governor General would be supported by a calm and rational husband.

“Your Excellency, I’ll just take your bags—” Robard said.

“Begone!” roared René.

Robard bowed away in mock subservience and René and Lise headed upstairs. Bedward.

But it was quick, businesslike bliss, as Lise experienced it. Afterwards, they lay cozily enough in their matching bathrobes on top of the king sheets, brocade curtains drawn against the now-sinister vista of the Hill, the lamps as low as possible.

When she felt ready, she told him the story of her day with Niko: the King–Byng incident in class, the suspension, her incredible conversation with Niko about Shymanski et al., with the twists and turns of Sussex Drive domestic life, including the fact that Niko had never taken the antidepressants in the first place. She ended with the face Niko had made.

René reacted immediately. “The boy knows too much.”

“I know.”

“And it’s also dangerous for him to know what he does.”

“I told him he couldn’t talk to Dr. Pelletier about it.”

“
D’accord
.”

“Oh my God, René. What can we do?”

“The only thing I can think of is if we take him out of the city. Even out of the country.”

“I can’t—not right now, with—the prorogation, the Prime Minister.”

“I have looping in LA.”

“When?”

“Next week, but I could go earlier and take him.”

“Demain?”

“Oui. Demain.”

“Bien.”
After her son was safe, she’d worry about how she could hold the country together by herself. And handle
la Noël
.

He rose abruptly from the bed, hit the floor for push-ups, stood, put his glasses back on and adjusted them, although she loved when they slid down his nose. “After I check in with Niko about California, we need to talk about Romania.
Toi et moi
. Foreign Affairs.”

“Vraiment?”
But she thought,
Enfin
.

“Absolument.”
He headed off to dress.
“Sans aucun doute.”

And she thought,
Pourquoi?

Downstairs hummed.

Margaret Lee asked if she’d like to view the petition that had just arrived. Lise did, and was handed seven original pages signed by 169 Members of Parliament from all the coalition ridings: Bonavista, Cardigan, Kings-Hants and Beauséjour, represented by the dear son of deceased Governor General Roméo LeBlanc; Miramichi, Rimouski, Chicoutimi and Toronto-Danforth; Ottawa Centre, Ottawa South and Sault Ste. Marie; Nickel Belt, Guelph, Wascana, and Vancouver East, South, Centre, Quadra, and all the way north to Nunavut,
un pays avec les sons d’un poème. Des mots—très simples
.

They asked the Governor General to not prorogue the Parliament and permit them to exercise their vote as they had been elected to do by the Canadian people. All original signatures—scrawled, emphatic, illegible, anally neat—cleanly dated. She knew how hard it was to corral these kittens even to sign a birthday card to their kid. She stared at the pages.

Back in Margaret Lee’s office, the windows were shuttered and one sole halogen light illuminated her desk, occupied only by a Mac laptop and a nineties phone. A whiteboard exposing Lise’s present and future dominated the wall. “I may have located a constitutional adviser,” Margaret Lee said. “You don’t know him.”

“That dog won’t hunt,” Lise said. “I want one I know.”

“They’re all in the Caribbean.”

“Right,” said Lise. “And last September they were in Muskoka.”

“They get around,” said Margaret Lee.

Lise walked out. She wanted to review her Eugene Forsey, perhaps even to call one of these experts directly herself. She ducked across the first-floor corridor, the fragrance of a lovely new bouquet, overstuffed with lilies, choking her.

René was in her study. “Oh, here you are,” he said.

“How did your talk go with Niko?”

“It was okay. Given everything. He’s in crisis.”

“He’s inconsolable.”

“Yes, and scared. He’s on for California except he wants you to come, too. I explained to him why you can’t. Not right now. He gets it.”

“Je t’aime.”

“Hold that thought.” He led her to the couch. “Lise, we need to discuss Romania.” They sat down in unison. “On the Ceremonies Route, on the way to the Speech from the Throne, I told you I’d done some extracurricular work for
DFAIT
when filming was on hiatus.”

“Yes,” Lise said. “You told me you did it for me. To improve my relationship with the PMO.”

“
Exactement
. I was still mad at them for that low trick of playing the Lévesque cleep on the Apoonatuk show. Trying to frame me as a separatist.”

“And twisting my elbow so that I’d allow the writ to be dropped for an election that wasn’t scheduled.”

“Yes, and I guess I thought, let bygones be bygones. That our time in office would flow more smoothly if I played the game. So they approached me,
DFAIT
. They already knew I had some free days, I don’t know how, and that it wasn’t enough of a break for me to come back to Ottawa or go to Paris or London. They wanted me to do ‘detailing.’ Detailing, they called it. I told them I wouldn’t do anything I disagreed with.”

“Black ops,” Lise said, nodding. Romania was known for that.

“So this was wine and dine. I met these Romanians, businessmen, being courted for a private–public partnership, something with natural gas. Their reserves are diminishing, and we have the technological companies that can maximize their capability. And we’re at this fantastic restaurant, French, and before I know it, the restaurant’s closed, it’s turned into a
private gathering, and out come the drugs, very good drugs—from the look of them, you know—and the girls, also very nice—from the look, for sure—and I’m out of there.”

“Where were your bodyguards?”

“Nada. Because I wasn’t on official business in Europe. And I tell
DFAIT
what happened, why I left, and they apologize for putting me in that position. And I wanted to tell you about it, but everything was so crazy. A few weeks later, I’m back on the shoot, and it was my big scene,
ma chère
, big, the
DFAIT
deputy shows up on set, can you believe? And he’s got this photo, can you believe—”

Lise could.

“—and there I’m standing under the Romanian flag with this drug lord, convicted drug trafficker, in a big embrace.”

Lise held her face in her hands. “So they’ve set you up again.”

“Oui, ma chère.”

“What did you say to
DFAIT?”

“Fuck off.”

A silence.

René continued, “We are here tonight on the cusp of history. I don’t want to burden you with this when you must have all your wits for this monumental deliberation. I can’t tell you not to prorogue.”

“Shut up, René,” Lise said.

“But if I were you, I wouldn’t let the PM prorogue.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m finished with this regime, Lise. I’m done with this particular minority government, and if they’re still running
the country tomorrow, I’m done with Rideau Hall, and with serving as your consort.”

Lise fastened her hand on his heart.

“C’est tout. C’est fini.”

“What about our marriage? Our boy?”

“You are free to follow your conscience. I love you now, and I’ll love you tomorrow, whatever happens, and I’ll wait for you to leave the office. I’ll never leave Niko. He is my son now too. But if this government continues another day, I cannot stay. And if I
stay
with you, your days in government will be numbered.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your life may be in danger.”

16
 

I
T WAS FOUR A.M. IN OTTAWA
. She should have slept; she couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts pinged: what
had
happened to Corporal Shymanski, and where
was
Lieutenant-Colonel Aisha K., and poor Martha, poor young girl, and Becky having to deal with such a crisis while living at Sussex Drive. And ponged: how stupidly Roman Catholic could Shymanski be; and wasn’t Martha exposed to sex education, and why didn’t Becky pick up on their romance; and,
mon Dieu
, her own husband was threatening to resign from Rideau Hall and abandon her. Which would be disastrous for her son. And if René didn’t resign, he’d bring down a scandal upon them. Also not good for Niko. She was devastated; she didn’t know where to put her emotions. She had to stash them, along with what the anglos call
le baggage
, and so she did.

They were brisk at Buckingham Palace, but they connected her with Sandringham, which was where the King
happened to be. “In a spot of trouble over there, are you?” The Governor General coordinator was wry.

“Yes,” Lise said. “I, of course, understand that the Governor General of Canada is independent, as all Governor Generals are. However, I’d like to be able to consult with His Majesty, if necessary, later in the day, specifically five or six hours from now. Would He be available?”

“Excuse me, Your Excellency, I’ll put you on hold.”

When he returned, he was quite chipper. “His Majesty says it would be lovely to converse as long as you’re aware that he’ll be chatting unofficially. All to be kept on the q.t. Ta-ta.”

He really did say that.

6:00 a.m.: she checked on Niko in his room. She loved his cranky snore and the little bit of fuzz on his upper lip, which made the acne stand out. She snooped around his desk and took his defaced juice-sticky student directory; the number she needed was in it.

6:06 a.m.

She called Stornoway.

“Allo,”
said Monsieur Triste. It was clear he hadn’t slept either.

“Préparez-vous.”

“Pourquoi, madame?”

“Vous allez former le gouvernement.”
She hung up.

She opened the shutters in her study. The old-fashioned Christmas lanterns decorating the driveway offered an
inkling of deceptively sweeter Victorian times. She thought she could hear the Canadian anthem being sung by live human beings. It was faint and it was close by. The demonstrators must have spent the freezing night parked at her gate.

She lay down on the couch, the one serially graced by Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, JFK, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Václav Havel, Salvador Allende, Lech Walesa, and pulled up the gift quilt from the President of Kazahkstan, which smelled of fields and rutting goats and winter and meat cooked till it fell off the bones over a fire, and drifted to the refrain, which seemed to be on repeat, “We stand on guard, we stand on guard.” She’d never known until now that it was a lullaby.