Sussex Drive: A Novel

by Linda Svendsen

  Becky shook her head. Lise saw that she had to ask. “What do you know?”

  Lise didn’t hesitate. “Tout.” She threw another muffin.

  “Truly?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Your daughter.” Lise caressed the familial noun.

  Becky sat up tall, squared her shoulders, took a breath and left the room. Lise waited. Outside, the sun shone brilliantly, and Lise could see, on the slightly crumby TV screen, that the crews outside Rideau Hall, where she was collared and leashed, had started shooting the winter rainbow that had just now rooted itself in the middle of the Ottawa River behind the Hill. She heard, “Meanwhile, the PM’s looking for his own pot of gold.”

  It was less than ten minutes later when Becky returned. She passed Lise the handwritten letter of resignation from Margaret Lee. “Effective immediately. Embargoed until the New Year.”

  “The debt.”

  “Forgiven.”

  For Canada, a drop in the bucket. For St. Bertrand, perhaps a future.

  “Telecommunications?”

  “Best efforts.” Becky produced the prorogation document. “Clark says sign here and here.”

  Lise did. She had a wild urge to add one of Becky’s emoticons to her signature but was able to restrain herself.

  “One final thing,” Becky said.

  Lise regarded her with detachment.

  “Who told?” Becky asked. “Niko?”

  “I will never say,” said Lise.

  “Shymanski,” Becky breathed.

  From the empty rooms above the Rideau Hall front porch—an area of suites known as the Mappin—Lise moved aside the curtain. Below her, the Prime Minister was in makeup. Becky was magically redelivered from a limo that slipped in up the drive. She wore sunglasses and a long dark coat by Arabesque, with a knotted red and white scarf—she was Pablo-less now, and Greg completely ignored her presence, even when she tugged the sleeve of his protective duster.

  A helicopter landed on the pad by the skating rink. Three men rushed from the pod. Constitutional advisers, she presumed. Too late.

  “My fellow Canadians.” Greg launched into his speech. Lise stared down at his bald spot. He was audible because every channel in the nation was broadcasting this, and every television in Rideau Hall was tuned in. “The Governor General and I have concluded a productive two-hour session, the longest in camera discussion between a Prime Minister and the representative of the monarchy in Canadian history. She has, in her infinite wisdom, granted this government a prorogation until—” and he named a date she couldn’t register because René had appeared in the door, his carry-on luggage in hand.

  He looked at her and put his hand on his heart. She walked to him and bowed her head; he rested his lips on her neck. Niko was just behind him, also with a carry-on.

  René said, “My resignation is on Margaret Lee’s desk.”

  Lise nodded. It was all too much. “The North,” she said. “Mistassini might be a good idea.”

  René squeezed her hand.

  “Niko,” Lise said, “I want you to relax in California, go surfing, just get away from here and have a good time.”

  Niko said, “You sold out.”

  And they left.

  Later that night, alone, Lise turned on the news.

  The prorogation was already ancient history.

  Monsieur Triste had resigned as Leader of the Opposition.

  Instead of opening a Ski-Doo manufacturing plant, the PM had called yet another media conference at the Press Building. Flanked by Afghan ambassador Jabar Khan and a few pertinent ministers, he announced that the Canadian government had negotiated the release, without paying any ransom, of the beloved Lieutenant-Colonel Aisha K.

  “Lieutenant-Colonel!” he said. The camera moved to a wide shot. The PM gestured to a dark-haired babe poised in the wings.

  “Tabarnac!” Lise knocked over her wine.

  It was the first time Canadians had seen the Lieutenant-Colonel without her full-coverage burka; they didn’t know what she looked like at all. That went through Lise’s mind as she studied the woman on her screen. Her walk was a glissando—no rhythm, no slight weave and bob. She wore a camel jacket, matching short skirt, calf-clenching black leather boots, tasteful gloves, and more closely resembled the sultry TV anchor from the Kabul breakfast show than any memory Lise had of her own mature and maternal Lieutenant-Colonel Aisha K. This Aisha’s hair was beauty-pageant ready; she wore winged eye makeup and lashes thick enough to flip a hummingbird. And where was Shymanski?

  Greg showed all his polished teeth. “Welcome to democracy.”

  She’d never seen that woman before in her life.

  March 18, 2009 10:00 a.m.

  Room 151, Centre Block

  CANADA

  Special Committee on the Canadian Mission of the Military Police Committee in Afghanistan

  Comité special sur la mission canadienne du comité de polices militaires en Afghanistan

  ***

  The Chair (Mme Margaret Lee Yeung, Kelowna–Lake Country, IND): I’ll call the meeting to order.

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K., welcome. We have all been looking forward to your appearance. Are you ready to proceed?

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K. (Afghan National Police, Kandahar, Kandahar, Afghanistan): Thank you, Madame Chair. Congratulations to you on winning the by-election in Kelowna.

  The Chair: Thank you. It is an honour to continue in the service of this great country. Lt.-Colonel, please begin.

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K.: A little bit of background. I joined the Afghan National Police in 2002, in Kandahar, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. My primary duties were to investigate crimes involving female perpetrators and victims, and to assist my superior XXXXX, who was assassinated in XXXX. After my superior’s murder, I was the primary female officer in Kandahar and it was my role to liaise with military and police personnel from NATO, which in Kandahar was primarily Canadian.

  In 2005, I was partnered with Corporal Shymanski. His role was to liaise with my unit, provide bodyguard services when there was any possible threat to me or my cases. In 2006, I visited Canada and toured with him in order to publicize the situation for girls and women in Kandahar and to commend Canada for its commitment to my people. At that time, Corporal Shymanski was a great guy.

  In the fall of 2006, this changed completely. Corporal Shymanski became involved with a prostitution ring run out of the governor’s mansion’s basement. He coerced ANP recruits to become involved. He recruited young Afghan women to become involved. And there was heavy involvement with drug trafficking. In January 2008, when two neophyte ANP reported his actions to my superior, they were murdered by taser. The Taliban claimed responsibility, but tasers are not weapons they routinely use.

  At that time, XXXXXXXXXXX ordered me to work undercover in the prostitution ring. I will not go into detail here, but my investigation revealed Corporal Shymanski’s extensive involvement in criminal activity at every level.

  In February 2008, when I was delivering critical evidence to the ANP chief and RCMP superiors, my convoy was attacked. There was an explosion and in the chaotic aftermath, I was abducted by XXXXXXXXXXX, rescued by XXXXXXXXXXXXX, and lived in XXXXXXXXXXX until the brave Canadian forces liberated me in December 2008.

  With the clear understanding that Corporal Shymanski lost a leg in that same explosion, I offer that this was an unfortunate consequence but does not exonerate him of accountability in this action.

  The Chair: Please take all the time you need. A glass of water.

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K.: To the best of my knowledge, Corporal Shymanski acted alone. No superior RCMP officers were involved in this operation.

  The Chair: Lt.-Colonel K., thank you for your brave testimony.

  I turn this over to the Honourable Committee member from Buntzen Lake.

  Hon. Bibbo Hedge (Buntzen Lake, B.C., NDP): Lt.-Colonel K., these are serious revelations and unsubstantiated, perhaps defama
tory, accusations. Did you see first-hand Corporal Shymanski commit any crime?

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K.: Yes. He had a taser. In Kandahar.

  Hon. Bibbo Hedge: Did you not have a successful visit to Canada with Corp. Shymanski in 2006? Did you not say, and I quote, “he’s a great guy”?

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K.: Yes, at that time, he was a great guy. Then, he wasn’t.

  Hon. Bibbo Hedge: With all due respect, that doesn’t make sense.

  Lt.-Colonel Aisha K.: War does not make sense.

  The Chair: Thirty seconds, Mr. Hedge.

  Hon. Bibbo Hedge: The last time I heard testimony like this in Special Committee was—

  The Chair: I’m going to make an executive decision here. Let’s break for lunch.

  April 2009

  SODOM AND GOMORRAH

  (with thanks to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”)

  From Temptations: The Rock Opera

  Sodom and Gomorrah

  Where’d you go?

  Birds drop over your ashes

  Oh how I wish ’twern’t so

  Sodom and Gomorrah

  I’m still here

  Yes, I’m one lonely pillar

  Gone is my spouse so dear

  I knew it was my lot in life

  To Honour being my Lot’s wife

  I got i-i-i-i-i-it!

  But then all our people they were bad

  And Our Nice Father he got mad

  And here we find me

  (Licking our salt wo-wo-wo-ounds)

  Sodom and Gomorrah

  My heart cries

  Urban centres I sinned in

  Make me so sad I sigh

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY GREGORY LEGGATT, B.Sc., M.Sc.

  17

  APRIL WAS THE CRUELLEST MONTH and therefore optimal for a G20 in London—hosted by British PM Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah. They were Labour. Becky and Greg had been chauffeured in the early morning English gloom, past baton-waving Met police and frazzled cherry blossoms, to the conference site at Docklands, where Becky would make sweet and Greg would rub brains and elbows with Angela Merkel, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Nicolas Sarkozy and others, including that rabid Kevin Rudd and American newbie and infidel Barack Hussein Obama, still on his global honeymoon. As fate would have it, as soon as Greg had tactically bolted to the reception area washroom, Becky bumped into the FLOTUS.

  “Becky!” said Michelle Obama, as if they were sorority sisters.

  “Michelle!” Becky had to look up to her—everybody did, because the First Lady was Tall. And clearly extremely intelligent—a lawyer, after all. Harvard. And a proactively parenting Chicago mom, which made her cunning. Yet dressed in a poodle skirt, peasant blouse and Crayola pink cardigan, she resembled the teacher, super-sized, on Magic School Bus.

  Plain Sarah Brown, her name an onomatopoeia, sashayed between them, resting a cold hand on Becky’s shoulder. “Meesh,” she said to Michelle. “I see you’ve met Becky.”

  Michelle smiled graciously. “Heya, Sarah. Yeah.”

  “If our countries, Meesh, the U.S. and Britain, have this so-called ‘special relationship,’ how would you characterize relations between you and Canada?”

  “That’s easy,” said the POTUS, playfully inserting himself into the troika. “Friends with benefits!” With a huge grin at Becky, Barack slid his arm around Michelle’s waist.

  “Barack, you’re bad.” Michelle mock-tapped his wrist.

  “Becky, am I right?” said POTUS.

  On the spot, Becky thumped her purse against her thigh. “Hell, yeah! And this friend would like to bend your ears about the pluses of Canadian oil sands!”

  Chuckles ensued. Becky laughed along, making sure she lasted the longest, while Sarah Brown fussed and gathered the other First Ladies (and the bemusedly lost “First Laddies,” spouses of the female leaders) to talk about security and the escalating G20 riot.

  In the distance, she saw that Greg had returned to their VIP area, but he seemed to be avoiding her gaze.

  The truth was, Greg had been avoiding her for months. He hadn’t spoken to her, privately, since the prorogation. They hadn’t spoken to each other publicly either, unless there was a teacher summit, kid’s birthday or Valentine’s Day photo op when she baked a smiley heart cake she wanted to crush and schmear in his face. He’d been outraged at the December negotiation with the Governor General, that Lise and her rogue son had threatening intelligence on their daughter. There hadn’t been a whit of gratitude for her extraordinary efforts around the constitutional crisis or the deliverance she dealt up to him with her own family values on a platter with her soul. His mood was generally irascible, and had seeped into the civil service, the ministries, the culture, the very warped woof of Ottawa, the texture of the snowflakes, the sharpness of the knifelike icicles, the march of pedestrians with their malevolent shoulders, and more. She’d felt the chill enshroud her from the PMO to the PCO, from the Parliamentary Library to the Rideau Mall parking garage to the Beaver Tails stall at the ByWard Market.

  As a result, all that Becky thought about was her upcoming meeting with Nina Madrigal, Greg’s first love. For it was on the following week. In Ottawa, mind you. Becky had thought about the enigma of Nina so often, replaying her conversation with Alice Nanton on that fateful day late last November, that she felt as if she were embarking upon an affair.

  But first, the G20. On the London Eye, Becky was trapped with Svetlana Medvedeva. (Becky kept all appendages folded, crossed, tucked and intensely Kegeled; any Russian in London made her nervous after the radiant death of their ex-KGB guy.) She survived.

  Then there was the visit to the Royal Albert Hall for a concert predictably performed by choirs from alternative schools (“Jerusalem,” “It’s a Small World,” “That Sheep May Safely Graze” and “Stronger” by Kanye West, more of a poke than a nod to the African-American First Lady, and completely inappropriate). Trust Labour!

  That evening, Becky attended the First Lady event at Number 11 Downing Street while Greg dined next door (working dinner) at Number 10. The theme was “Your Art is Your Life, Your Life is Your Art,” and Sarah Brown was slightly apologetic when she confessed that the epigram originated from Henri Matisse, a non-Brit. “However, we’re all artists,” she declared. “Brilliant!”

  Before dinner, the First Ladies toured Number 10. It was massive, with more than a hundred rooms, including apartments, parlours, nanny cave, Jacuzzi, private garden, nuclear bunker, and an empire that expanded into Numbers 11 and 12. Well-meaning Sarah Brown had done her decorating best, pointing out where she’d moved a Gainsborough hither, a Turner sunset thither.

  Becky was seated next to the Children’s Book Author. She’d noticed that people who wrote children’s books were never called writers, they were called authors, while adult authors were simply writers. Their table also included two tiny spouses from countries whose first language was anything but English, and Mrs. MI6, wife of Britain’s spy chief—which made social sense to Becky, because she knew that many of the spouses were married to former intelligence czars.

  Becky was hyper-aware of the CBA’s works, a critically lauded, unusually lucrative series about a juvenile (delinquent) warlock fighting the Followers of Light, who finally saw the light himself but only after six volumes and the equivalent in billions of pounds. She’d found it heretical, anti-Christian rubbish, and had herself signed one of the petitions to have the books banned (burned!) in Canada.

  Over the cherry port charlotte dessert, the CBA zeroed in. “So, Ms. Canada”—she pointed her fork—”why’s your man so keen on killing the Kyoto Protocol?”

  “Oh, crumb,” Becky said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I have only one mission at the G20.”

  “Which is?”

  “To never talk politics.”

  The CBA, an earnest activist, obviously didn’t hear. “I’ve been watching Canada very closely since he came to power, and the country’s gone totally wacko. You’ve
abandoned AIDS initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa, slashed budgets, and told your provincial leaders to privatize medicine, water and education, and you’re inflating your military budget, and your surplus—that amazing buffer built by the previous administration—has been splurged on, quite frankly, cheap vote-bribing wanks.”

  Becky stared across the daisy-and-rosebud-festooned table at the CBA. She was lithely starved, her hair swept up in a ponytail of preposterous ringlets, and she’d obviously been brainwashed by fellow lefty billionaire eccentrics. George Soros. Bill and Melinda Gates?

  In the hush: “Canada’s really none of your beeswax,” Becky said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I wonder you have the time to write,” Becky mused. “So many fac-turds, so little time.”

  The CBA pushed away her Royal Wedgwood.

  “Oh, look,” Becky misdirected, and pointed into the corridor, cluttered with yet another portrait of Winston, “there go the First Laddies.” The female leaders’ husbands were stealing away.

  But the CBA launched into the plight of First Nations reserves. And the PM had loosened restrictions on food sanitation, with corporations policing themselves. How many have died from listeriosis? Did Becky know? Or care?

  “Hey,” said Becky, “I think you’ve mistaken me for Svetlana. You know, Mrs. Medvedev? Over to our extreme right?”

  Becky saw Sarah Brown glance their way. Even Meesh. Becky would have loved to take off her figurative gloves and attack the CBA for poisoning the precious minds of children with toxic literary magic, but she knew better. She’d been trained by American PR experts. So she blinked back a tear.

  “You have children,” said the CBA, reading Becky’s mind, “do you not?”

  And with that, Becky was impaled.

  For Greg had been wooing her natural-born children away from her. Day by day, he’d slowly isolated her with tactical disses and invited their allegiance to Club Greg. She was home-schooling Pablo, so still had a maternal and elementary oar in there, but Peter was long gone from her reach, now on Ritalin for ADHD and unspecified issues, and his eyes were glassy, his answers to her clipped.