Sussex Drive: A Novel

by Linda Svendsen

  “Guard our citizens …

  “Beaucoup d’emplois …

  “Also, we will aim …”

  She saw the weary face of the separatist leader; he was such a good dancer. Ditto, the trim socialist dude. Such a sweet ass. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court stared at the ceiling; he was Asian, Alberta born, the rebel son of a famous dim sum chef. Lise couldn’t bring herself to steal a glance at the rigid RCMP commissioner. Or Greg’s Cabinet: the left-wing media called them Old Testament golfers, moose stalkers and misogynists.

  She met the eyes of the Leader of the Official Opposition, Monsieur Triste. He regarded her with an unwavering sort of unrequited trust.

  What would happen if she switched the documents?

  The thought lounged upon her langue de bois.

  She faltered.

  Greg scratched his calf, a brow, the other calf. Her pause made him nervous. “Give me,” he said.

  “Pardon?” Lise turned.

  “The Speech.” Greg grabbed for it.

  A sudden commotion overhead. Shouts from the gallery.

  “Murderers!”

  Lise craned her head to see. MPs ducked. Senators jerked awake, wondering where they were.

  Security scrambled and a phalanx of RCMP and other operatives charged toward Lise and the PM, ready to escort them to the safe room.

  “Murderers!” A gut-wrenchingly familiar tone of voice.

  Then she spotted Niko. In the front row, wearing a black toque with skull and crossbones, and he was not supposed to be there, he was supposed to be in pre-Calculus 11. In a quick second he was apprehended and hustled out the side door by security. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. And neither could anyone else in the Chamber.

  René stood on his throne, ready to run out after his stepson.

  “Assieds-toi.” Lise waved him back down. “René.”

  The Speaker of the Senate rose to take charge. Lise waved at her to sit too.

  “Silence, s’il vous plaît,” Lise said to the gathering. “Silence, please.”

  She was shocked when they obeyed.

  She’d never felt so strategically African, so black, so other, and it had to do with being the mother of the outspoken boy now being manhandled off-camera and, oddly, the improbable death of his Cree father, who’d been in his intellectual and legal prime when his canoe capsized in shallow water on the calmest day of the year.

  And everyone in front of her was so very very shocked and blanc.

  She took a deep breath.

  Then, from the sidelines, where she’d repositioned herself in the ruckus, Margaret Lee flagged a special parliamentary page, who ran like a nimble ballgirl at Wimbledon to shove a glass of water into Lise’s hand. Lise reacted, taking a sip only to save face for the girl. As she watched the CPAC camera tilt to focus in on the brass and gold mace, the page artfully reclaimed the Defence document and bounded away.

  “Holy shit,” Lise said nationwide.

  René secured Lise’s arm as they descended in a private elevator to the bowels of Centre Block. It crossed her mind that it was likely no Governor General had ever visited the jail in the basement of the House of Parliament, at least not to spring his or her child from custody after a Senate meltdown.

  It was tooth-achingly cold. The halls were a fluorescent labyrinth with the layered scent of decades of aftershave and possibly French fries. Lise’s legs were those of a newborn Bambi, bendable drinking straws, not suitable for charging behind this very apologetic RCMP liaison.

  “Ici,” he said, and carded them through into a locked-down zone, a room crammed with men staring at live Hill images on their computer screens, and on into a tinier office where a plainclothesman sat vigil with Niko. He left when René swept her in.

  Lise bundled her boy. She couldn’t say anything to him; she just hung on to him and dry-heaved.

  René patted her on the shoulder.

  “Don’t,” she said. “What about him? What about Niko?”

  When she stopped, she sat up in the plainclothesman’s chair and took in her son.

  He looked exhausted and wired at the same time. In his thug’s clothing, with the acne, the grimace and the furtive turn to his eyes, she didn’t know what to make of him or this situation. Where had he found that toque? She prayed that Margaret Lee and the PMO were burying the incident. If she had to, she was going to use the fricking government Challenger to bring back Dr. Pelletier, Niko’s shrink, from wherever he was burrowed away. Ministers often used the jet like a cab, so there was precedent.

  René sat down, cross-legged, on the floor. He seemed to have forgotten he was wearing Excellency haberdashery. He had to look up at Niko.

  “What is going on with you?” Lise asked Niko. “You need to tell us.”

  “I’ve told you, Maman,” Niko said. “You don’t believe me.”

  “What’s this about?” René asked.

  “It’s Shymanski, isn’t it? I don’t know what you think you thought you saw, but you didn’t,” Lise said.

  “Let Niko talk, Lise.”

  Niko looked René directly in the eyes. “At Rideau Hall on Halloween, I saw four men in masks come out of the bush and attack Corporal Shymanski. He was handcuffed, ankle-cuffed, if that’s what you call it, and thrown into a van.” Niko mumbled, “Becky saw too.”

  “You didn’t mention that before,” Lise said accusingly.

  “Maybe you should talk to Becky about it, Lise,” René said.

  “I’m not talking to her right now.”

  “Isn’t Niko staying with her when you’re in Africa?”

  “I plan to talk to her before I leave and not a moment before.”

  “Perhaps Niko shouldn’t be staying at 24 Sussex then?” René said.

  “Je n’ai pas d’autre choix! I want a pair of maternal eyes watching him! I want security! Vingt-quatre heures sur vingt-quatre!”

  Niko’s shoulders slumped.

  Lise felt like merde. “I’ll talk to Becky, then. Tout de suite.”

  Niko and René didn’t respond.

  “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” Lise declared.

  René contemplated all of this; Lise could see his mind somersaulting as he passively stared at the limestone wall. “Niko,” he finally said, “it doesn’t make sense that you witnessed this and yell at your mother when she’s giving the Speech from the Throne, in the Senate, on television.”

  “René. She didn’t take me at my word.”

  “This is serious, Niko. C’était fou.”

  “René. I am not crazy. I’m mad.”

  “You mean angry,” Lise said.

  Niko nodded.

  “So angry you’d leave a note in my underwear drawer?”

  “Lise.” René was shocked.

  “What are you talking about?” Niko said. “What note?” It was clear he didn’t know what she was referring to.

  “I have to go and be the Governor General,” Lise said. “And fix this. Then René will take you home. I’m going to locate Dr. Pelletier and we will deal with—how you’re feeling. And I promise you I will talk to Becky about Corporal Shymanski and find out what happened. I love you, Niko, more than anybody in the world, and René and I stand with you. We’re with you.” She pincered him in her embrace.

  When she released him, he looked ruined.

  Then she left him with his stepfather, who wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

  At the reception in the Speaker’s salon to celebrate the opening of the parliamentary session, there was contagious relief that it was only the GG’s half-Indian son snapping like a pine-beetled twig and not al Qaeda. Scotch flowed.

  Lise was held hostage by the Chief Justice, George, who lived in fear that Greg would stack the Supreme Court with pro-life/capital punishment justices. He was one of Lise’s biggest boosters by default, given that they were the two top non-Caucasians in Ottawa. He also very sweetly dismissed Niko’s bizarre behaviour as adolescent attention-seeking.

 
“Kids,” he said, which he could safely say because his offspring were filed at Johns Hopkins, Brown and McMaster in postgraduate programs.

  Greg appeared at Lise’s elbow. She mustered her courage.

  “Excuse her,” he said to George. “I need to speak privately with Her Excellency.”

  George disappeared immediately.

  “How’s Nick?” Greg asked.

  “Functional,” Lise lied. “What was that classified document I almost read to the country?”

  “Listen, Lise—your shots up to date?”

  “Oui, oui, toujours.”

  “Très bien.”

  “Pourquoi?”

  “You’re going to Afghanistan.”

  “When?” said Lise.

  Greg looked at his watch. “Thirty-six hours,” he said with a bow. “Inshallah.”

  10

  INDIRA JOPAL, older sister of the president of Pakistan, meandered through A Thousand Years of History, the primo exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. At this rate, it would take Indira longer than a thousand years to appreciate the capitalist evolution of her host country.

  It was at times like these that Becky cursed the duties of her unofficial job description; rather than touring boring exhibits, she preferred a session of sit-down beadwork with First Nations women. Less time-consuming for her, and some of those Third World wives were actually very good at the craft and felt a sense of accomplishment, which transferred into positive feelings for Canada. For God’s sake, they were naturals—natives, even, themselves. However, the regular First Nations beaders were away on another traditional holiday and as a result Becky was midway between the Hudson’s Bay Company mink pelts and Pacific logging.

  She’d been through this maze many times, not only with the spousal corps and their sherpas, who always found that the settler hovels, cobbled together from timber and tin, reminded them of a certain village at home in the southern hemisphere, but also with all her children and their Ritalin-and-juice-addicted classmates, which included hosting sleepovers in the Raven’s Village.

  Today, Becky found Canada Hall, without the brigades of students, queasily empty and silent.

  Indira stroked the mink and addressed the translator, who asked Becky, “You own this?”

  “I wish,” Becky said. “Maybe for my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”

  Indira smiled at the translation, then nattered on in whatever language she spoke.

  “Too hot for Islamabad,” the translator said, holding the pelt.

  Becky imagined every strawberry strand of hair on her head tarnishing into rusty silver as tour time dripped to a standstill.

  When there were no immediate prospects of ideological conquest or conversion in a social situation, Becky’s intimate knowledge of the most proximate restroom in any government or public edifice was pressed into service. She pulled aside a security aide and sped-walked away on her spike LuLu’s, past the miners panning for gold and the Doukhobor church, toward the closest respite. It was a holiday to get away from the perpetual twilight of the history exhibit, to pee vociferously, and to take a long time washing her hands and reviving her lipstick. They were going to have to speed it up if Ms. Islamabad was going to be on time for a luncheon reception at the Supreme Court.

  “Becky.”

  She turned to find Doc, inside the door—and his maleness seemed incredibly inappropriate in the women’s washroom. He was pinning the door shut, keeping security and Third World bladders at bay. He was dressed for the Hill, in an Armani wannabe suit, probably zigzag-stitched by a Hong Kong tailor hired by his girlfriend. Bespoke, bothered and breathless.

  “Just FYI,” Becky said, dropping her tube back into the clutch, “this is the women’s.”

  “You haven’t returned my calls.”

  “Quid pro quo. Heard of it?”

  “Come on, Becky.”

  “What goes around comes around.”

  “I’m not here to talk karma.”

  “Good.” She moved to go past him out the door.

  He didn’t budge. “But we’re facing Karmageddon here.”

  “Doc,” she said, “I have a foreign dignitary under my arm, you’re completely out of line, and DFAIT will have a stroke.”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  “What?”

  “We need your help.”

  “What?” she said, already sensing what was coming.

  “Greg. He’s losing it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “In a few minutes, we’re going into an update and—”

  “I already know this.”

  “You know the details?”

  “No.”

  “We’re stripping federal public servants of the right to strike. We’re abolishing pay equity for women.” He paused.

  Becky didn’t comment. Yes, women should be in the home, raising their own children. While we’re at it, send the Filipinas back home to raise their own. And, yes, all those secret socialist feminists should tie on their Hush Puppies and heave-ho off Parliament Hill. Of course, the urbanistas would kvetch.

  “And he’s decided to cancel per-voter public financing of the political parties.”

  That got her attention. “Not good,” Becky said. “Not now.”

  “That’s what we’re telling him. And Finance is telling him. It’s the time to appear conciliatory. He and Chief, they won’t listen.”

  “What about the stimulus?”

  “No.” Doc slumped against the door. “Not even a sliver.”

  That was grim indeed. Becky pulled out her phone, but there was no signal. The Museum of Civilization was the equivalent of a mummy’s concrete bunker. “How much time?”

  “The press is already in lock-up with the fiscal update.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  “We’re in motion.”

  “I can’t change this!”

  “You must,” Doc said. “Pull a rabbit out of a hat.”

  “I’d like to pull,” Becky said, “a wireless signal.”

  “You have to talk to him.”

  “Follow me.”

  Becky blasted out of the washroom with Doc in tow and told a bored aide to escort Indira through the rest of Civilization and on to lunch. She ducked past the Canadian postal museum and down the escalator to the Great Hall, dwarfed by the Pacific Coast totem poles. Standing in front of a Tsimshian manor, with a monotone drumbeat in the background, she stared across at the shining rump of the Parliamentary Library and a statue of poor murdered D’Arcy McGee, advocate for Confederation, stashed at the rear of Parliament Hill, as she hit the button.

  Doc watched her hopefully and stroked a few rogue chest hairs.

  “Yes.” Greg actually answered his personal line.

  “Greg,” said Becky. “A minute.” She could tell he was being groomed; when his stylist subdued his remaining hair he went into a trance.

  “Is this to do with the kids?”

  “No.”

  Greg hung up.

  Doc got it. “Oh my God. Oh my God. He’s night and day since Obama got in. Oh my God. Oh my God. Night and day. Night and day.”

  Becky refused to respond. Her husband wasn’t affected by the threat to global conservatism posed by Obama’s election. It wasn’t the crash of the planet’s financial markets. It was much more than that. She wouldn’t tell Doc if she could, and he was already on the run—jumping over a Haida canoe and bolting up the escalator, saying into his phone, “Mayday.”

  Becky squeezed into the back row of the visitors’ gallery of the House as Greg, below, in the Prime Minister’s seat, turned his gaze back to Finance, who was about to deliver the long-awaited economic update. Finance, a Newfie Barbie of Norwegian descent, was fired up, placing the Hill and a nation of citizens on high alert: “financial degradation,” “difficult financial deterioration,” “financial decimation,” “severe financial devaluation” and “financial deliverance.” The final utterance sounded to Becky lik
e reservations for the Big Five banks at the Rapture. She sensed the discomfort of the opposition, most of whom had already premasticated the speech in the lock-up, parsing its guts at the same time as the press. Tai Chi squinted in the dim light and squirmed in his skin as Finance dirged, in a liturgical litany, the fallen saints in the American financial firmament: Santa AIG, Santa Bear Stearns, Santa Citigroup, Santa Fannie Mae, Santa Freddie Mac.

  “We cannot ask Canadians to tighten their belts without looking in the mirror,” Finance declared, sticking out her Norwegian cleavage. She went on to make the announcement Becky dreaded: the $1.95 per vote paid by Canadians to each political party, which prevented the unions and corporations from playing ringmaster at the electoral circus, would be terminated. The opposition heard this in the same way they would an order to march out of the House, turn their backs on the Eternal Flame and face a firing squad. This was endgame. Bankruptcy. No funds for travel, party building, policy conventions, internal polling, nada.

  Becky noticed that everyone across from her husband in the Commons was looking directly at him, or perhaps at Chief, a shadow lurking. Becky allowed her mind to travel freely for a second and imagined what would happen if the Liberals, Bloc and NDP went bankrupt. The Conservatives would morph, like a nicer Gollum with the ring, into one über-tribe to lead them all.

  While Finance ended with an earnest, “We’ll get through this,” Becky did the math. Her husband’s government would transfer approximately 89 cents per man, woman and child from the voter subsidy back to the public piggy bank as stimulus spending. She compared this $30 million with Germany’s $213 billion, Japan’s $275 billion, Britain’s $418 billion, China’s $600 billion and the U.S.A.’s staggering $1.5 trillion. Greg’s belt-tightening, ball-freezing parody wasn’t any form of stimulus—not with the Employment Insurance claims increase of 96.4 percent over the last year and the auto industry tarred, feathered and hitchhiking. What was Greg thinking? Was he thinking?