"Welcome to Afternoon Hot Spot. Today we have with us Joan Foster, author, I guess that's authorm, of the runaway bestseller Lady Oracle. Tell me, Mrs. Foster - or do you prefer to be called Ms. Foster?"
I was taking a drink of water, and I set it down so quickly I spilled it. We both pretended the water was not running across the table and into the interviewer's shoes. "Whichever you like," I said.
"Oh, then you're not in Women's Lib."
"Well, no," I said. "I mean, I agree with some of their ideas, but...."
"Mrs. Foster, would you say you are a happily married woman?"
"Oh. yes" I said. "I've been married for years."
"Well, that's strange. Because I've read your book, and to me it seemed very angry. It seemed like a very angry book. If I were your husband, I'm not sure I'd like it. What do you think about that?"
"It's not about my marriage," I said earnestly. The young man smirked.
"Oh, it's not," he said. "Then perhaps you'll tell us what inspired you to write it."
At this point I told the truth. I shouldn't have done it, but once I'd started I couldn't stop. "Well, I was trying some experiments with Automatic Writing," I said. "You know, you sit in front of a mirror, with a paper and pencil and a lighted candle, and then.... Well, these words would sort of be given to me. I mean, I'd find them written down, without having done it myself, if you know what I mean. So after that ... well, that's how it happened." I felt like a total idiot. I wanted another drink of water, but there wasn't any, I'd spilled it all.
The interviewer was at a loss. He gave me a look that clearly said, You're putting me on. "You mean these poems were dictated to you by a spirit hand," he said jocularly.
"Yes," I said. "Something like that. You might try it yourself, when you get home."
"Well," said the interviewer. "Thank you very much for being with us this afternoon. That was the lovely Joan Foster, or should I say Mrs. Foster - oh, she'll get me for that one! - Ms. Joan Foster, authoress of Lady Oracle. And this is Barry Finkle, signing off for Afternoon Hot Spot."
At the party, Sturgess took my elbow and steered me around the room as if I were a supermarket pushcart.
"I'm sorry about the interview," I told him. "I shouldn't have said that."
"What do you mean?" he crowed. "It was sensational! How'd you think it up? You sure put him in his place!"
"I didn't mean to," I said. No use to tell him that what I'd said was true.
There were a lot of people at the party, and I was bad at remembering names. I made a mental note not to drink too much. I'd made a fool of myself once that day, I felt. I had to keep calm.
When Sturgess finally let go of my elbow, I backed up against the wall. I was hiding from a newspaper columnist who'd seen the television program and wanted to have a conversation about psychic phenomena. I felt like crying. What was the use of being Princess-for-a-day if you still felt like a toad? Acted like one, too. Arthur would be humiliated. What I'd said, coast to coast, was way off the party line. Not that he had a party. This was a party, some party. I finished my double Scotch and went for another.
When I was getting my drink at the bar, a man came up beside me.
"Are you Lady Oracle?" he said.
"It's the name of my book," I said.
"Terrific title," he said. "Terrible book. It's a leftover from the nineteenth century. I think it's a combination of Rod McKuen and Kahlil Gibran."
"That's what my publisher thought, too," I said.
"I guess you're a publishing success," he said. "What's it like to be a successful bad writer?"
I was beginning to feel angry. "Why don't you publish and find out?" I said.
"Hey," he said, grinning, "temper. You've got fantastic hair, anyway. Don't ever cut it off."
This time I looked at him. He too had red hair, and he had an elegant moustache and beard, the moustache waxed and curled upward at the ends, the beard pointed. He was wearing a long black cloak and spats, and carrying a gold-headed cane, a pair of white gloves, and a top hat embroidered with porcupine quills.
"I like your hat," I said.
"Thanks," he said. "I got a girl to do it for me. A girl I knew. She did some gloves to match, but I kept getting stuck on things - people in breadlines, dead dogs, nylon stockings, stuff like that. This is my dress uniform. Why don't you come home with me?"
"Oh, I couldn't," I said. "Thank you anyway."
He didn't seem disappointed. "Well, at least you can come to my show," he said. He handed me an invitation, slightly smudged. "The opening's tonight. It's just a couple of blocks from here; that's how come I crashed this party, I got tired of my own."
"All right," I said. There didn't seem any harm in it, I thought. Secretly I was flattered: it was a long time since anyone had propositioned me. Also I found him attractive. Him or the cape, I wasn't sure which. And I wanted to get away from the columnist.
The opening was at a minor art gallery, The Takeoff, and the show itself was called SQUAWSHT. "It's a pun, like," he told me as we walked across to Yonge Street. "Squaw and squashed, get it?"
"I think so," I said. I was studying the invitation, in the light from a store window. "The Royal Porcupine," it said. "Master of the CON-CREATE POEM." There was a picture of him in full dress, flanked by a shot of a dead porcupine, taken from underneath so its long front teeth were showing.
"What's your real name?" I said.
"That is my real name," he said, a little offended. "I'm having it changed legally."
"Oh," I said. "What made you happen to pick that particular one?"
"Well, I'm a Royalist," he said. "I really dig the Queen. I felt I should have a name that would reflect that. It's like the Royal Mail or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Also I thought it would be memorable."
"What about the porcupine?"
"I've always figured the beaver was wrong, as a national symbol," he said. "I mean, the beaver. A dull animal and too nineteenth-century; all that industry. And you know what they used to be hunted for? The skin was for hats, and then they cut the nuts off for perfume. I mean, what a fate. The porcupine though, it does what it likes, it's covered with prickles so nobody messes with it. Also it has strange tastes, I mean beavers chew trees, porcupines chew toilet seats."
"I thought they were easy to kill," I said. "You hit them with a stick."
"Propaganda," he said.
As we arrived, a number of people were leaving; outside, the SPCA was picketing with signs that read SAVE OUR ANIMALS. The show itself consisted of several freezers with glass tops and fronts, like the display cases for ice cream and frozen juice in supermarkets. Inside these freezers there were a number of dead animals, all of which had apparently been run over by cars. They were quick-frozen in exactly the poses they'd been discovered in, and attached to the side of each one, in the position usually reserved for the name of the painting, the size and the materials - Composition #72, 5' x 9', acrylic and nylon tubing - there was a little card with the species of the animal, the location where it had been found, and a description of its injuries: RACCOON AND YOUNG, DON MILLS AND 401, BROKEN SPINE, INTERNAL HEMORRHAGE, for instance; OR DOMESTIC PUSSYCAT, RUSSELL HILL ROAD, CRUSHED PELVIS. There were a skunk, several dogs, a fawn and a porcupine, as well as the usual cats, groundhogs and squirrels. There was even a snake, mangled almost beyond recognition.
"What do you think of it?" asked the Royal Porcupine when we'd made the rounds.
"Well," I said, "I don't know.... I guess I don't know much about art."
"It's not art, it's poetry," the Royal Porcupine said, slightly offended. "Con-create poetry, I'm the man who put the creativity back in concrete."
"I don't know much about that either."
"That's obvious from the stuff you write," he said. "I could write that stuff with my toes. The only reason you're so famous is your stuff is obsolete, man, they buy it because they haven't caught up with the present yet. Rearview mirror, like McLuhan says. The new poetry is th
e poetry of things. Like, this has never been done before," said the Royal Porcupine, looking morosely over towards the front door of the gallery, where another bunch of queasy first-nighters was making a green-faced exit. "Do you realize that?"
"Have you sold anything?" I asked brightly.
"No," he said, "but I will. I should take this show to the States, people up here are so cautious, they're unwilling to take a chance. That's how come Alexander Graham Bell had to go south."
"That's what my husband says," I offered.
The Royal Porcupine looked at me with new interest. "You're married," he said. "I didn't know that. You've got the sexiest elbows I've ever seen. I'm thinking of doing a show on elbows, it's a very unappreciated part of the body."
"Where would you get them?" I asked.
"Around," he said. He took me by the elbow. "Let's get out of here."
As we went past the group of SPCA picketers outside the front door, he muttered, "They missed the point. I don't squash them, I just recycle them, what's wrong with that?"
"Where are we going?" I asked the Royal Porcupine, who still had hold of my elbow.
"My place," he said.
"I'm hungry," I said evasively.
So we went to Mr. Zums on Bloor Street, where I had a Zumburger with the works and the Royal Porcupine had a chocolate milk shake. I paid - he didn't have any money - and we debated the pros and cons of going back to his place.
"I want to make love to your elbow," he said. "With fringe benefits."
"But I'm married," I said, chewing thoughtfully on my Zumburger. I was resisting temptation, and it was a temptation. Arthur had frozen me out; as far as he was concerned I might as well have been a turnip. I'd been finding myself attracted to the most inappropriate men lately: CBC news commentators, bus conductors, typewriter repairmen. In my fantasies I wasn't even bothering with the sets and costumes, I was going straight to the heavy breathing. Things must have been bad.
"That's okay," said the Royal Porcupine, "I prefer married women."
"My husband might not prefer it," I said.
"He doesn't have to know, does he?"
"He'd know. He has intuition." This wasn't true; what was really worrying me was: even if Arthur did know, would he care? And what if he didn't care, what then? "He'd think you're decadent, he'd think you were bad for my ideology."
"He can have your ideology, I'll take the rest, fair enough? Come on, let me sweep you off your feet. You're the type, I can tell."
I finished my Zumburger. "It's impossible," I said.
"Have it your way," he said, "you win one, you lose one. You're missing something though."
"I don't have the energy," I said.
He said he'd walk me home, and we set off along Bloor, heading west toward the street of old three-story red-brick houses, with porches and gables, where Arthur and I were living at that time, temporarily as ever. The Royal Porcupine seemed to have forgotten about his proposition already. He was worrying about the success of his show. "The last one I did, there was only one review. The old fart said it was an unsuccessful attempt to be disgusting. You can't even shock the bourgeoisie any more; you could put on a show of amputated orphans' feet and someone would ask you to sign them."
We passed the Museum and the Varsity Stadium and continued west, through a region of tiny, grubby old stores which were turning into boutiques, past a wholesale truss concern. On Brunswick we turned north, but after several houses the Royal Porcupine stopped and shouted. He'd found a dead dog, quite a large one; it looked like a husky.
"Help me get it into the bag," he said, for he'd taken a green plastic garbage bag out from under his cloak. He jotted down the location in a notebook he carried for the purpose. Then he lifted the hind end and I slid the garbage bag over it. The bag wasn't big enough and the dog's head stuck out the top, its tongue lolling.
"Well, goodnight," I said, "it was nice meeting you."
"Just a minute," he said, "I can't get this thing back by myself."
"I'm not going to carry it," I said. The blood was still wet.
"Then take my cane."
He hoisted the dog and concealed it under his cloak. We smuggled it into a taxi, for which I ended up paying, and went to the Royal Porcupine's lair. It was in a downtown warehouse that had been converted into artists' studios. "I'm the only one who lives here though," he said. "I can't afford not to. The others have real houses."
We went up the heavy industrial elevator to the third floor. The Royal Porcupine didn't have very much furniture, but he did have a large freezer, and he took the dog over to it immediately and lowered it in. Then he tied the limbs so the corpse would freeze in the position in which we'd found it.
While he was doing this, I explored. Most of the space was empty. In one corner was his bed, a mattress on the floor, no sheets; on top of it were several mangy sheep-skin rugs, and over it hung a tattered red velvet canopy with tassels. He had a card table and two card chairs; on both the table and the chairs there were used plates and cups. On one wall was a blow-up of himself, in costume, holding a dead mouse by the tail. Beside it was a formal portrait of the Queen and Prince Philip, with decorations and tiaras, in a heavy gilt frame like the kind in the principal's office at high school. Against the other wall stood a kitchen counter, with none of the plumbing installed. It held a collection of stuffed animals. Some were toys, teddy bears and tigers and bunnies. Some were real animals, expertly finished and mounted, birds mostly: a loon, an owl, a bluejay. Then there were a few chipmunks and squirrels, not done well at all. The stitches were visible, they had no bead eyes, and they were long and fat, like liver-wursts, their legs sticking straight out.
"I tried taxidermy first," said the Royal Porcupine, "but I wasn't any good at it. Freezing's a lot better, that way they don't get moths."
He had taken off his cloak, and as I turned I saw that he was now taking off his shirt as well. The dog blood left red stains as he unbuttoned; his chest emerged, covered with auburn hair.
His green eyes lit up like a lynx's, and he walked towards me, growling softly. The backs of my knees were weak with lust, and I felt a curious tingling sensation in my elbows.
"Well, I guess I'd better be going now," I said. He said nothing. "How do you work the elevator?"
"For Christ's sake," I said a minute later, "wash your hands!"
"I've always wanted to know what it was like to fuck a cult figure," the Royal Porcupine said reflectively. He was lying on his mattress, watching me as I scrubbed the dog blood off my belly with a corner of his shirt, dipped in the toilet. He didn't have a sink.
"Well," I said a little sharply, "what's it like?"
"You have a nice ass," he said. "But it's not that different from anyone else's ass."
"What were you expecting?" I said. Three buttocks. Nine tits. I felt like a moron for wanting to get the dog blood off, I felt I was violating one of his rituals, I was letting him down. I hadn't risen to the occasion, and already I was feeling guilty about Arthur.
"It's not what there is," he said, "it's what you do with it."
He didn't say whether what I did with it would pass his standards or not, and at that moment I didn't care. I just wanted to go home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
This was the beginning of my double life. But hadn't my life always been double? There was always that shadowy twin, thin when I was fat, fat when I was thin, myself in silvery negative, with dark teeth and shining white pupils glowing in the black sunlight of that other world. While I watched, locked in the actual flesh, the uninteresting dust and never-emptied ashtrays of daily life. It was never-never land she wanted, that reckless twin. But not twin even, for I was more than double, I was triple, multiple, and now I could see that there was more than one life to come, there were many. The Royal Porcupine had opened a time-space door to the fifth dimension, cleverly disguised as a freight elevator, and one of my selves plunged recklessly through.
Not the others, though. "When can I
see you again?" he asked.
"Soon," I said. "Don't call me, though, I'll call you. Okay?"
"I'm not applying for a job, you know," he said.
"I know. Please understand." I kissed him goodnight. Already I was beginning to feel that I couldn't see him again. It would be too dangerous.
When I got back to the apartment Arthur wasn't there, although it was almost twelve o'clock. I threw myself on the bed, stuck my head under the pillow, and began to cry. I felt I'd ruined my life, again. I would repent, I would turn over a new leaf, I wouldn't call the Royal Porcupine, although I was longing to. What could I do to make it up to Arthur? Perhaps I could write a Costume Gothic, just for him, putting his message into a form that the people could understand. Nobody, I knew, read Resurgence except the editors, some university professors, and all the rival radical groups who edited magazines of their own and spent a third of each issue attacking each other. But at least a hundred thousand people read my books, and among them were the mothers of the nation. Terror at Casa Loma, I'd call it, I would get in the evils of the Family Compact, the martyrdom of Louis Riel, the horrors of colonialism, both English and American, the struggle of the workers, the Winnipeg General Strike
But it would never work. In order for Arthur to appreciate me I'd have to reveal the identity of Louisa K., and I knew I couldn't do that. No matter what I did, Arthur was bound to despise me. I could never be what he wanted. I could never be Marlene.
It was two in the morning when Arthur came back.
"Where have you been?" I asked, snuffling.
"At Marlene's place," Arthur said, and my heart dropped. He'd gone for consolation, and....
"Was Don there?" I asked in a small voice.
It turned out that Marlene had told Don about Sam, and Don had hit her in the eye. Marlene had called up the entire editorial staff of Resurgence, including Sam. They'd come over to Marlene's house, where they'd had a heated discussion about whether or not Don had been justified. Those in favor said the workers often hit their wives in the eye, it was an open and direct method of expressing your feelings. Those against it said it was degrading to women. Marlene had announced she was moving out. Sam said she couldn't move in with him, and another debate began. Some said he was a prick for not letting Marlene move in with him, others felt that if he didn't really want her to he was right to say so. In the middle of this, Don, who'd been out getting drunk at Grossman's Tavern, came back and told them all to get the hell out of his house.
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