by Edward Riche
“Those people, Mr. McAvoy, they’re not serious, they’re malcontents.”
“If you decide to run there is a background checklist thing. The party uses a company, Dalton Monitor. They’ll contact you if they need something clarified.”
“I am an open book. Everything you need to know about me is on the back of my hockey card.”
McAvoy laughed. It was genuine, spontaneous this time, but it was not pleasing to the ear, ringing where it shouldn’t have, as if he were flexing a cramped muscle.
“That’s a great line. Great. You’re good with the media I bet.”
“I haven’t been tested.”
“You are being modest. Can the prime minister call you some time to talk hockey?”
“If he’d like.”
“He would. Think about the offer.”
“I will.”
“We are going to win the next federal election, Mayor Olford. It’s going to be a second strong, stable, majority Conservative government.”
Matt was long enough in politics to know this might be true or false, that no one knew.
“Are you . . . I probably shouldn’t ask . . .”
“Is the prime minister going to lead the party into the next election?”
“That was my question,” said Matt.
“The coming contest will be the most important of our lifetime. The last election was about a return to stability. The ballot question next time out is whether Canada is, as we would argue it always has been, an essentially conservative country, fiscally but more importantly socially. The choices before the voters will be clear. This has been a personal crusade of the prime minister. Once this fundamental question of our true character is resolved, I think only then would the prime minister’s greater project be completed to his satisfaction. He’s not a coward; he’s not going to run from the most important fight in this country’s history. ”
Matt thought that McAvoy must have said much of this before, so effortlessly did it roll off his tongue.
“Okay.”
“Your father was in the RCMP,” said McAvoy.
“Yes, he was. Assistant commissioner for B Division. He died in 2007. My mother soon after.”
“And she played the piano.”
“She did.”
“The prime minister likes to play the piano. Talk soon, Matt.”
“Goodbye.”
Matt put the handset back in its cradle. This was something extraordinary. Wasn’t it? The prime minister of Canada was inviting him into government. Matt couldn’t be mayor of St. John’s forever. That would be sad. Long-term mayoralties always ended in shabby scandal, in pathos. At fifty years, Matt was young enough that a stint in the federal Cabinet would lead to some plum corporate directorships, to making some real money.
What had they said? What had he and McAvoy discussed? Hockey. Faceoffs. Stan Mikita, Yannick Perreault, Dave Keon. They’d polled the riding. Matt’s want of belief seemed not to be an issue. Faith in Canada, not Yahweh, was paramount. Naturally. That was easy; Canada was a great place to live, safer and more prosperous than most places. The Queen? “Allegiance to Her Majesty,” he’d said. Matt hadn’t lied, had he? Yes, he implied fealty to the Crown when he thought it patent nonsense. He thought Elizabeth II possessed no more legitimacy than the Easter Bunny. With whom had he ever shared this thought? Patty. A couple of pals, in passing. It would not haunt him and he never had trouble pretending, swearing oaths in the name of that which he did not believe.
How, Matt wondered, could they even know or care that his mother played the piano? Peculiar.
This was exciting. It was. Economics came up, Freshwater school. Empirical macro, supply-siders, believers in small, non-interventionist government. Matt retained only morsels of knowledge from his half-assed B.A., some obvious truths about supply and demand, but he graduated with the sense that beyond those economics was scarcely more than augury. The prognostications of the foremost experts were wrong more often than right. The financial columns in the business pages of the papers were not so different from those in the sports section, mostly guys talking about anything other than that which actually confronted them and doing so with all the authority of horoscopes and miracle diets. The “economy” was merely a diagnosis of the culture’s current state of mind, booming and busting like the cycling between mania and depression, treated as ineffectively by doses of either free or regulated markets. Was it? His economics was as bad as his French. But he wore a Stanley Cup ring.
He pushed the intercom button.
“Mayor Olford?”
“Audrey, could we please not tell anyone about that call.”
“Of course not.”
“Really, okay?”
“Yes, sir. You’ve got the private meeting of Council in ten minutes, sir.”
“Yes. Thank you,” Matt said.
Sixteen
“. . . they’d have ’im now if they’d installed those security cameras.” What was Wally O’Neill getting on with? Something to do with the Davenant man in the park? “Motion detectors, right. Can we vote on security cameras again? Fluid situation, right.”
“Your heart’s in the Highlands, Wally,” said Councillor Jardine.
The Conservative Party would raise the money for his campaign, Matt supposed. The call had come from the Prime Minister’s Office, after all. They would have a team ready for him. He would require a professionally run organization. That had a cost. The incumbent was not of highest competence but his previous victory was by a fair margin. And while the guy had fumbled a few during his first term in Parliament he had not right out shit the bed. Newfoundlanders were allergic to the governing Conservative Party of Canada. They were, without Matt in the race, unelectable on the island. But the dislike wasn’t substantive. There had been slights and broken promises, betrayals real but mostly imagined. That was politics. It was nothing the construction of a new prison in the province wouldn’t solve.
Newfoundlanders could not find a human connection with the prime minister and so would not trust him. Perhaps it was merely a cultural difference; the prime minister was from Ontario via Alberta, so as strange to Newfoundland as a Dutchman. Polling or no, the campaign would not be, like his runs at the mayoralty had been, a cakewalk.
Newfoundland had no sway, was a de facto colony of Canada. They didn’t need a seat in Newfoundland. The only possible concern they could have was the need of someone in Newfoundland to deliver the message of the multinational resource companies. They needed an ambassador, a translator.
And Matt wasn’t a Conservative. He wasn’t anything. He was suspicious of tribal associations and ideologues; party politics was a dressing room. But standing for the federal Conservatives was different than wearing a Tory or Liberal hat provincially, in Newfoundland. The Conservative Party of Canada stood for something. Something.
Alessandra looked to be exasperated by whatever it was that Wally was saying. She was on her feet before Matt acknowledged her.
“Councillor O’Neill, this circumstance changes nothing. It is the same as it was before. Surveillance cameras invade everyone’s privacy in an effort to catch a small minority committing some offence, and in this case a man is in the park after hours. No one has been harmed.”
“You know what I don’t get? Why would anyone go to a park for privacy? Seems retarded.”
“Councillor O’Neill!” Matt said. “You’d wear that word if this was a public meeting.”
“Sorry, bad habit. It just come out. I’ll stop. If we has security cameras the cops would know where he’s to and go get him, obviously they don’t have the manpower to be down beating the bushes.”
“How is he surviving?” asked Councillor Jardine.
“I suppose he’s foraging,” said Alessandra. “It’s the big thing in gastronomy these days.”
“In wha?” said Wally.
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“I’ve heard people are leaving him food,” Councillor Dewey Mercer volunteered. “There’s a Facebook page. He has a lot of supporters. He thinks he’s a deer.”
“Who says,” asked Councillor Jardine, “that he thinks he’s a deer?”
“I heard he’s an Englishman,” said Wally.
“Assigned ‘broke actor’ at birth, was he?” said Jardine.
This was a sign, thought Matt. This ridiculous congress, the foolishness now going on in the chamber, was telling him it was time to move on, to take up the prime minister’s invitation. These private meetings of city council were ostensibly held to deal with matters that demanded a citizen’s confidentiality or a legal shroud but were more often, as was the case now, to spare everyone embarrassment.
Maybe Matt wasn’t a Conservative but he was conservative. Sort of. Maybe not. The political parties of the centre and left were confused. Their policies were fuzzy and incoherent. They had no program. The Liberal Party of Canada was still tainted by scandal and a legacy of cronyism, in such desperate condition they’d resorted to stunt-casting former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s son, Justin, as their leader. They were going nowhere for the foreseeable future. The federal New Democratic Party presented itself as progressive to a country that, in its private moments, was not. Ideals were only that: ideals, hopes, and dreams. Matt shared them, wanted the kids with talent to go to music school, wanted another MRI machine for the hospital, wanted public broadcasting, but one had to be practical. Matt was at least a fiscal conservative. Discipline. Balanced books. Economic decisions made in self-interest not only drove the machine, they were almost always more prudent. In that we were pure animals.
If he was going to make a move to federal or provincial politics, now was the time.
“The police have been notified that the gentleman is trespassing,” Matt said. “That he thinks he is a deer is, frankly, not the issue.”
“He identifies as a deer, Your Worship,” said Councillor Mercer. “That’s what it says on the Facebook page.”
“Do you suppose other ruminants think this is cultural . . . whadda they call it?” Jardine searched for the word. “Appropriation?” No one bothered to hear him.
“We don’t have deer in Newfoundland,” said Wally.
“I will follow up,” said Matt. “I will see that this matter wastes no more of our time.”
“Where do he,” wondered Wally aloud, “do he’s business?”
Seventeen
City Hall was empty this summer afternoon and the building had the quiet of a school an hour after the closing bell. Matt could go home in the time between the private and public meeting but he decided that he would drive out to a car dealership on Kenmount Road. His Camry was showing age and for reasons, something to do with his decision to run federally, he felt he should be in a Mercedes. Mostly he did not want to return home and express his dismay over Patty’s Facebook posts. Maybe, when he told her of his intention to stand for St. John’s South, he could suggest she adopt a low profile for the sake of the campaign. No need to bring religion into it, right?
Councillor Cappello emerged from the Planning Department, carting cardboard tubes.
“Councillor Cappello.”
“Hello.”
“Preparing difficult questions?”
“Getting my facts straight. Kavanagh Court.”
“I was . . . was going to drive out to Bowring Park,” Matt said. This wasn’t true; Matt had made it up on the spot and now wondered why.
“Concerning Mr. Davenant?”
“Yes.” Matt couldn’t stop now. “A look, a recce. Facts straight.”
“That is probably wise.”
“Would you like to come?”
Eighteen
She did. Alessandra wanted to go for a drive with Matt. Needed to. Jules shouldn’t be alone for so long she knew. But his sense of time was so disrupted lately she couldn’t be sure if he missed her anymore if she was gone for ten minutes or ten hours. He was in a temporal soup gone cold. Sometimes it was plain Jules missed Alessandra even when she was in his company, even as she was holding his hand.
“I suppose I should. We. This situation has to be addressed. Mr. Davenant cannot be left there for too long. Something might . . . he will come to harm,” said Alessandra.
“Harm, yes. It has to be sorted before the fall.”
“Fall?”
“Exposure.”
“In the press?”
“No, die of exposure. To the elements. Of cold.”
“Yes.” Alessandra felt inordinately embarrassed she hadn’t followed what he’d said, and knew she was blushing.
“Come on,” said the mayor.
She thought he was taking a peculiar route until he pulled into the drive-through of a Tim Hortons on Topsail Road.
“Would you like a coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“I thought Italians were mad for coffee. In the movies they are always stirring their espressos.”
He made an affected gesture, pinkie finger out, of turning a spoon around a small cup.
“I love coffee. I’m . . . it’s ridiculous, I know, but many Italians are snobs about it.”
“Don’t go in for the Tim’s?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“No. Don’t go in for the Tim’s.”
“You miss Italy?”
“Yes. Italy really isn’t . . . I’m from Venice, which is not really Italy. Well, of course it is, but . . . but yes, lately I do very much miss it. Can I explain? My mother died a year after my father so I was flying back and forth, burying them, sorting the estate. It was all a tangle.” Alessandra caught Matt’s eye; he was listening. “And the political paralysis of Italia, the embarrassment of the Berlusconi years. Secondary embarrassment, I think they call it.” Matt nodded. Alessandra continued. “Place is a museum, you know? Atrophy isn’t the word but . . . it is a frustrating place to live. Neither my brother nor I could really afford to stay in the family home; it’s rented. After my last trip I think I wanted to forget about Venezia. But recently . . . I don’t know why.”
“It’s home.”
“As St. John’s is yours.”
“Yeah. Home is home.”
They were silent for a moment before the mayor said, “What’s the opposite of missing something?”
A voice came from the speaker next to the open window.
“Can I take your order please?”
Matt drove past every entrance to the park known to Alessandra, beyond what she understood to be the gate closest to its western boundary. He drove up a street that traced the park’s perimeter to a small gravelled drive canopied by maple and beech. A big Quonset hut nuzzled by trucks and tractors told her this was a service entrance. A sign said that entry was restricted but Matt drove on.
“I’m the mayor,” he said, as though he’d heard her thoughts. That being mayor was authority enough was further demonstrated when they were stopped by a worker in overalls striped with blaze-orange tape.
“Oh, Mayor Olford. Off you go. Sorry about that.”
“Keep up the good work,” Matt said with a wave.
Matt steered them to a stretch of pavement too narrow to have been intended for vehicular traffic and drove, rather too fast, into the park. They passed the public pool, crossed a short overpass, and pulled over on the verge below a wooden pavilion.
“Let’s go deer hunting,” he said.
There was nothing predatory about their advance. Alessandra saw that Matt seemed content to amble; he wasn’t stalking anything.
“What do you suppose is wrong with buddy?” he asked.
“Mr. Davenant? Some sort of delusional state,” Alessandra said. “You’ve heard of Stendhal syndrome?”
“No.”
“People becoming disoriented, not knowing who t
hey are, hallucinating, after experiencing great beauty. Happens sometimes to tourists in Venezia, in Venice. In museums it occurs. Something like that.”
“It can’t be easy, living in the park.”
“Maybe it was a greater effort being who he was.”
“I don’t understand it. Maybe I can’t,” said Matt.
“Can anyone? Does anyone know what it is to be you? To be Mayor Matt Olford? I’d say it isn’t such a struggle. You are an attractive man, and good-looking people have it easy. A big hockey star once. People want to be with you. You can just drive into the park with a wave, ‘I’m the mayor.’ Life can’t be hard for you.”
“You’re right, people don’t know. Do I even know?” said Matt. “That guy, that Purcell guy, he used a word for Deer Man, ‘sovereignty’?
“Yes, I heard that. Apparently Mr. Davenant is certainly exercising . . . I don’t know . . . self-rule.”
“I guess.”
“But then, by extension, suicide is sovereignty.”
“You’ve lost me now, professor.”
“I’m a librarian.”
“Worse.”
They walked for a while in silence.
“I’m not as conservative as you think,” Matt said. Alessandra couldn’t think why.
“Yes you are,” she answered.
“I’m a . . . I am a fiscal conservative but people can do what they like. I want people to do what they like. I don’t want to live somewhere where people feel they can’t be who they are, can’t say what they like. If Mr. Davenant wants to be a deer . . .”
They’d backtracked to walk under the bridge over which they’d moments ago driven. Three teenage boys were lounging in the shade on the slope of the bank where it met the undercarriage of the overpass. One of them called out.
“Gonna suck him off, missus?”
Matt stopped and sighed. He drew a breath and barked, “Get down here.”
“Or is he a faggot?” Their spokesman was a black-haired boy. He was smoking a cigarette.
“It’s ‘Your Worship, Mayor Faggot’ to you,” Matt said in a voice Alessandra had never before heard. “Come down and say hello, Beautiful.”