Sussex Drive: A Novel

by Linda Svendsen

  “I forgot my iPod, Mom,” she said quickly. “That’s all.” Her usual ponytail was loosened, the elastic tight around her wrist. “But no worries. I found it. Over by the inukshuk.” She gave a pat to her pocket.

  Her daughter wasn’t given to lying, never having had cause or opportunity. Becky wondered what would have suddenly created the need. “Let’s go back in,” Becky said, touching her girl’s elbow. “Before we set off the alarms.”

  Becky took a few Croc steps in the direction of the front porch, but Martha looked back toward the forest.

  He emerged from the entrance to the trail farthest from the single sodium arc lamp blazing over the parking lot. RCMP corporal Taylor Shymanski slowly, hop-bump, concluded his perimeter patrol and raised his hand in a wave. “Salut, madame.”

  “Salut.”

  Shymanski was the latest addition to PMO home security; he was also the youngest. A well-known and respected face. Eastern Townships–raised, a Ukrainian sausage-and-poutine guy in his mid-twenties. He’d worked with the Afghan National Police, training recruits, and had also toured central Canada with his Afghan counterpart, Lieutenant-Colonel Aisha K. They’d spoken with opinion-makers and participated in think-tank panels about what was and wasn’t happening on the ground in Kandahar. She was a widowed thirty-something police detective whose true surname couldn’t be revealed in order to protect her family. Last February, Shymanski’s Toyota SUV had been destroyed in an explosion outside the governor’s palace. He’d lost his right leg in the blast, and Aisha K., in the same incident, had been abducted and was eventually presumed murdered. It had taken months to reassemble him with the prosthetic limb and a minute for the GG to pin on the medal. All of this had been a huge trauma, and Greg had taken the kid under his wing. This summer he’d kept the young man—wiry, affable, with furry seventies sideburns and a prematurely wise face—close. Becky privately suspected this particular Afghan file was still on simmer.

  He took a while to approach and came up beside Martha.

  “Salut, madame,” he repeated. “Mademoiselle,” to Martha. “Is everything all right?”

  “To be honest, I came out because I thought I heard something.” Becky was aware of Martha’s breathing. “An animal.”

  “Probably me, madame,” Shymanski said. “Crashing through the bush.”

  “What did it sound like, Mom?” Martha asked.

  “High-pitched,” Becky said.

  “Flying squirrel,” Shymanski offered without hesitation.

  “You think?” Becky noticed that Martha was taller than him, possibly because of his slight stoop.

  “Sure. They’re bouncing off the sugar maples tonight.”

  “Get out!” Becky said, ever so awkwardly.

  Martha looked down.

  “They dodge around trees like Sidney Crosby on the rink.” He waved his crutch in the moonlight. “They have these long flaps of skin that stretch from their wrists to their ankles.”

  “It’s true, Mom,” Martha said. “Corporal Shymanski showed us—”

  “On the night vision.”

  “Right,” Becky said. “Peter and Pablo told me about that. I bet that’s what I heard, then.” But she suddenly had the sensation of being locked into a soundproof booth, like the ones on TV game shows, and while the show went on and on, she was stranded with her thoughts. Becky found Shymanski pleasant and sympathetic; he could shoot the breeze and, obviously, a weapon or two. But how did a man his age rebound from loss and horror to live and buckle up his plastic limb next to his very real balls every day? He was trying not to look at her daughter’s long legs, so skinny, in the moonlight. Her 110-pound baby with flushed cheeks and erect nipples. The quiet and sisterly presence that had provided the background hum to the PMO the last few months as Becky played camp counsellor to Peter and Pablo.

  Becky wound it up quickly and all said their bonsoirs.

  Back in the vestibule, Becky gave Martha a piercing glance. “Your iPod’s by your bed, honey. It wasn’t outside.”

  Martha missed a beat. She was such a sheltered eighteen—it would have been endearing if Becky hadn’t been so distressed. “Did I say iPod, Mom?” She dug her phone from her shorts pocket. “I meant—” she said, her palm glowing.

  Side by side, they walked up the staircase enveloped in what Becky discerned was the dying aroma of the Disney-trademarked cologne and the drying vestiges of Corporal Shymanski’s most intimate essences. Becky felt seriously ill. How had she and Greg missed this? She’d talk to him first thing in the morning.

  2

  BUT THAT WAS NOT TO BE. At 6:30 a.m., Becky sprang from the shower to wrath from the sky, to a battle of helicopter blades chopping into her consciousness. She wrestled open the steaming bathroom window, damning the National Capital Commission, their stingy landlord, and saw Greg down on the lawn frozen in a Camp David tableau. He sported his best Levi’s jeans, which her tailor had lassoed in at the waist, and an untucked maroon polo shirt that camouflaged her considerable achievements (and influence on the official residence’s chef) in caloric reductions. On his head, covering the bald spot overemphasized by his black fringe: a vintage Tilley Endurable.

  A man she’d never before seen jumped down from the helicopter onto the specially hydrated emerald lawn. With his understated Kennebunkport vibe and the squint of a seasoned weekend sailor, he towered over Greg as the PM shouted a boisterous welcome, then patted him on the back, a consoling gesture partnered with a brisk finger pointing at the whirlybird then his ears. Greg laughed; he got it. They ambled up to the sun porch while aides bounded over, reaching for the man’s briefcase. They were waved off. Hurrying in from Lawn Right, Chief, with damp hair and exquisite chinos and cuffs, looked sharp in a self-obsessed way. He had Doc in tow, in Ray-Bans, with his polo shirt sprouting fur at the collar. Here was their date at the OK Corral, and that was A-okay with them. They dashed in the back door.

  None of this was on the schedule.

  Becky dressed quickly in a Lida Baday sleeveless pantsuit, coriander cotton twill, a higher-end outfit she kept handy for emergencies and summits, and went downstairs, to where the staff was scrambling, with CNN on low in the kitchen, to lay out a quick breakfast buffet in the sunroom. Peter and Pablo torpedoed each other’s cereal bowl with sliced banana and blueberry bombs; the scent of sunscreen and insecticide wafted from their pitching arms. She cornered one of the aides who’d tried to confiscate the helicopter man’s briefcase. “Who is he?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” the aide said. “Only the PMO has the intel.”

  “Well, you’re in the PMO.”

  “My level’s not that high.”

  “It’s not Nintendo,” Becky said.

  Just then she felt the breath of Doc on her shoulders. “Greg has requested your presence.”

  “I’ll let the boys know,” Becky said. “They’re supposed to go rock climbing.”

  “You’re wanted. Now.”

  “Who’s in there?”

  Doc just gave her his bespectacled look.

  Becky waited in the doorway while Greg set himself up in the white wicker loveseat, his legs crossed hombre-style, with the American directly across from him in a matching armchair (mental note: dye these hickory maple, ASAP). The American removed the lavender-stuffed Daughters of God throw pillow (hand-stitched by two sister-wives), which colourfully illustrated artisan cheese production on Noah’s Ark. Doc and Chief immediately stepped into the three and nine o’clock vantage points, placing their tiny notepads on the side tables in synch, with matching gel pens, BlackBerrys and tall glasses of water. Both men were hyper-alert.

  Becky then made her entrance, aware of her buff and freckled arms, her cloud of honeysuckle spritzer and a hint of breast for good measure.

  “I’d like you to meet Rebecca Leggatt. My wife.”

  Becky was always secretly pleased at the response; she savoured the immediate and visceral disconnect. The leading edge of a question seemed to quiver, then linger: How had
he gotten her? Why had she settled for Greg’s lumpen sourness? It was a mystery to plebeians and patricians alike, and wormed its way into the flow, and the pauses, of conversation.

  Becky shot out her hand, which was enclosed by both of helicopter man’s smooth clams. The American was memorizing her sweet hide, she hoped, and imagined it goose-pimpled in the salt breeze on his catamaran, yacht or similar aquatic transport. At forty-six, she could pass for ten years younger if the lighting was favourable.

  “Rebecca, this is Alexander Manson. He’s recently taken on the advising role in DC.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Becky said. “Welcome to Harrington Lake.” She’d heard about the speedy dismissal of Fuchs, the ex-adviser, whom she’d quite liked because Greg appeared solid as a brick and semi-brilliant next to him.

  “The pleasure is definitely all mine. Your husband thought it would be valuable for us if you sat in.”

  Becky fake demurred.

  “Given that you’ve busted in on a family holiday,” Greg prodded.

  “Right,” said Manson. “And I’m here on my own. As you know, our Canadian ambassador’s taken some time off this summer.”

  “He’s disappeared,” Greg said.

  “Gone back to the Okefenokee,” Manson said. “And conch soup.”

  “He’s just counting the days until he’s a civilian.” Chief had to add this.

  Pastor Grant, Greg’s campaign and spiritual adviser, respirated heavily from the Okanagan on a speakerphone set on the glass coffee table. Becky engaged in eye semaphore to remind Greg that Pastor Grant’s ears and big mouth were there, but Greg wouldn’t look her way.

  “The gist is,” Manson began, “the future. It’s become very clear that we’re in the middle of a financial Titanic. Our Federal Reserve guy, Big Ben, he’s looking at a nightmare. Paulson. All of them. And we’re looking at it spreading to Europe. And beyond. Iceland—it’s cracking. So this is the abyss. We’re here.

  “As you all know, John’s putting up a helluva fight. McCain’s can-do. For the right. A helluva thing. But it’s too close to call. Right now. Might be different tomorrow, but today we’ve got Chocolate Jesus. We’ve got his iPod apostles. We’ve got his posse running amok.

  “Here’s the lay of the land, globally. Mexico, Calderón. Right wing—it was hard to do, but we got him there. Cost us. U.K.—Brown’s Labour is as good as right, and we’ve got the Conservatives ready to carve his carcass any second. Sarkozy in France, check. Merkel, check. Dutchies, going righter by the minute. And then there’s you guys. Our invisible paperweight. Our secret weapon. Here in the free north strong and true.”

  After a pause, Greg said, “We lost our man in Canberra.” Greg still hadn’t got over Labour’s defeat of the right coalition down under. The former PM had been a mentor.

  “Temporary. A glitch.” Manson stared at Greg. “We’re on it.”

  Greg shrugged. “I have a stepbrother there.”

  “We need Canada to stay with us,” Manson barrelled on. “No matter what happens. A few years south of the 49th—it’s a hiccup. There’s a lot at stake.

  “With your minority government here. Risks. It’s been analyzed. A couple of our tanks checked this out. Especially with this economic backdraft about to burn the markets. And the feel-good ‘Yes, Whatever’ goddamn Dem ticket. Even though you run this country like you’re already president, a lot can happen. You with?”

  Becky looked at Greg. He seemed smothered in thought or else the man had had him at president, which they sometimes joked about, particularly during frisky pillow talk.

  “So you see an opportunity,” Greg finally said.

  “Check.”

  “You recall we passed a four-year election law based on a campaign promise and we’re not due for another election until 2010?”

  “Yes.”

  “At your suggestion.”

  “Of course.”

  The brain trust sucked this up.

  “You know that our editorial-savvy citizens may not be as prone to media amnesia as folks in the rest of the world.”

  “I’m sure they’re just as dumbed down as most. Mired in debt, hockey tickets. Costco, child care. And here’s the but,” Manson said. “Wait for it. We’d prefer to lock you guys in now. For real. For as long as possible. Because we don’t know the bottom. We need you to do some heavy lifting if the U.S. of A. sidelines for a spell.”

  Doc took a sip of his water and spilled on his pet beard.

  Manson spoke. “Of course, we’ll lend you a hand.”

  Chief made eye contact with Greg.

  “Any obs?”

  “No,” Greg said, looking at Manson. “No obs. It’s a go. It’s a green light.”

  It was exactly then that Becky understood that any discussion of contraception for Martha or a transfer to Nunavut, or even Haiti, for poor peg-legged Corporal Shymanski was going to be delayed or even forgone. Because this had to do with the majority, Greg’s majority, and that always came before family. Life would only be better for the family, in the long term, if Greg’s policies, which happened to be hers, came to fruition. If she was honest, she also felt a steady thrill at the prospect of nasty partisan combat once again.

  “What about the Privy Council types?”

  Greg flicked his finger in a missile-like meh.

  “What about the King? God Bless Him. Don’t you have to get Charlie’s permission?”

  Queen Elizabeth’s early abdication in favour of her senior citizen son and longish farewell tour in 2007 had rocked the world—especially Greg’s, who despised the environmentality of the freshly dubbed Green King. Hankies had been wrung. However, royal PR wizards had polled globally in the U.S. and it had been determined that the Charlie brand, with solid William as chaser, would provide the sentimental narrative and economic bump for Britain, particularly if Elizabeth II role-modelled retirement to the millions of greedy boomers refusing to exit the job market.

  “Our Governor General represents the Crown in Canada and it’s purely ceremonial,” Greg said.

  This would have been the time to mention King Charles’s flirtatious comments to the Canadian GG on royal occasions. Greg didn’t.

  “We’ve cut the apron strings.” Chief seemed pleased to hear his own voice again.

  “And so has the King,” Manson said. Group chuckle.

  “The GG is Commander-in-Chief,” Greg elaborated, and then, at Manson’s evident alarm, “In title only.”

  “We’ll have to change that.”

  “In good time. Bottom of the list.”

  “So a date-stamper then?”

  “A speech reader.” Doc.

  “A cheerleader.” Chief.

  Greg summed it up. “A few Royal Ass-ents.”

  “Royal what?”

  “You heard me.”

  Becky led the laugh.

  Doc stepped in on it. “She hands out medals.”

  “Like the Medal of Honor?”

  “More like wineries. Wellness. Even books.” From Doc again.

  “Cups, mostly,” Greg cut in. “You know the Stanley Cup?”

  “Hey, I played D at Harvard with a crazy Canuck.”

  “Well, Lord Stanley was Governor General, although we’ve scrapped any Brits serving in this role.”

  “Yes, we seem to have moved from Brits to economic migrants,” Chief said.

  Greg pressed on. “This one will probably come up with her own cup too.”

  “Pilates,” Becky enunciated, turning the exercise regime into a specialty coffee.

  Manson laughed with lazy luxury, and peeked at Greg again with the Becky question in his eyes.

  Greg stood, indicating the conclusion of playtime. “The role is to consult, encourage and warn. End of story.”

  “Heard this gal’s a maverick.”

  “That’s John McCain,” Greg said, and again Becky laughed and leaned low to pick up an orange juice from the coffee table.

  But Manson couldn’t quite let this subjec
t rest. “A real wild card.”

  “Only in that she was installed by the previous government for reasons I won’t get into.”

  “Wasn’t she wearing fur coats to promote the Eskimos and so forth?”

  “Fashion. Take it from me, she’s not wild anymore,” Greg said, nodding toward Becky. “My own secret weapon’s neutralized her.”

  Manson happily turned to Becky. “Even though she’s black.”

  She nodded. “The new white.”

  “So Amen!” shrieked Pastor Grant via speakerphone. “Let’s drop the goddamn writ.”

  Manson exploded out of his chair. “Amen!” he shouted. “I hear you, brother. Amen! Hallelujah!”

  “Amen! Amen!” Chief and Doc stood and gathered around Manson as Greg folded over and finally severed the connection on the speakerphone.

  On cue, Becky extended her hand like a semi-precious gift. “When you next see her”—Becky looked into Manson’s sea-damaged squint—”give my love to Laura.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it firmly against his damp heart. She didn’t let go.

  3

  “LISE, TU LES AS TROUVÉES?”

  Lise dug through the storage bin on the deck. “Un instant.” She was still pre-caffeine and hunting for her hiking boots. They’d been muddy and she’d left them outside, but the help had moved them when restocking the rustic Seven Dwarves–sized cottage.

  René, her husband, tousled and purposely unshaven, waved acknowledgement from the patio flanking their cottage. He was languid in the hot summer morning air, enjoying his own post-coital perspiration. Niko fidgeted beside him, swatting at a frenzy of bugs with his red hippie bandana.

  “Maman, maintenant.” Niko’s voice was as low as an elephant seal’s.

  Her son, her sixteen-year-old only baby, now seemed to be growing by centimetres hourly, akin to a cinematic alien infant time-lapsed into a six-foot filial aberration, with hairy dirt on his upper lip and a bouquet of taut whiteheads on his chin that pierced any person’s train of thought with their eminent squeezability.

  “Race you,” René said, and they took off out to the road, where Becky and her boys, and other rock-climbing types, were to meet them at eight sharp. It was 8:05.