Sussex Drive: A Novel

by Linda Svendsen

  “The allies would appreciate a sit-down to see what’s on Raymond’s mind. It will be a ten-minute talk. C’est tout.”

  “Un instant, s’il te plaît.” Silence.

  Two minutes later, Solange was back. “Jean-Louis agrees. Our terms. Our turf.”

  Lise signed off. “À bientôt.”

  “May I have your attention, please?” Robard jumped in immediately, waving an arm. “May I have your attention, please? Your Excellency, gentlemen, your attention—I need your attention. We have a CENTCOM update.”

  Lise and the Ray-Bans paid attention.

  Robard summarized quickly as they were only a few minutes from Jolie Ville airspace. Jolie Ville was experiencing scattered gunfire and grenade blasts; the death toll was in the hundreds. The capital had been without electricity or water for a day and the food supply was disrupted. The airport was closed. Looting was anticipated. The previous Western-backed president was MIA. International aid agencies were ramping up but days away from on-the-ground assistance. The nearest U.S. forces were back across the border in Burundi. The Black Hawks would circle the outskirts of the city.

  To complicate matters, Mount Agogo, the volcano overshadowing the city in the south, had started to seismically act up. Hundreds of earthquakes, minuscule on the Richter but nerve-racking in number, had set a record for swarm activity. It was expected to blow within minutes, knocking off the spatter cone and releasing the lake of lava within the crater at speeds of sixty miles per hour. All this with the attendant silica content of pyroclastic flows, ash, cinder, smoke and dust—none of it good for airborne craft.

  Nobody mentioned pathetic fallacy.

  Or reversing direction.

  Alexander Manson continued undressing her in his head. It was obvious.

  Lise was surprised when the Chinook made landing by the Former Slave Depot on the shore of Lake Victoria. “I thought Raymond HQ was at a Catholic church,” she said to Robard.

  Robard pointed at the sooty white steeple set in amongst the eucalyptus.

  “Let’s say howdy,” Manson said. “See what this hombre has to say.”

  Before they could exit the Chinook, it was surrounded by soldiers—a mix of indigenous St. Bertrand militia and Chinese military.

  “Only the lady,” the leader said. “Her only.”

  “We all go,” Robard said. “She can’t go unaccompanied.”

  The militia and soldiers replied in a chorus of fluent pointed Kalashnikov.

  “Then she can’t go,” Manson said.

  “Let her go,” Apoonatuk advised.

  “My sister’s in there,” Lise replied.

  “They’re expecting her,” Apoonatuk said.

  Manson slipped a capsule into her fist. “It’s quick,” he said. “You’ll be dead. Before you feel. Anything. I like. You.”

  “What?” Lise held it in her palm, then worried that it could eat into her skin and kill her in seconds. She stuffed it deep in her pocket.

  “Or use it. On somebody else. In a pinch.” Manson nodded meaningfully.

  “You need to get back here fast, Your Excellency,” Robard said, gazing at the volcanic smoke. “Pronto.”

  Paul Leggatt just watched her.

  Lise stepped out of the helicopter and drunk-walked up the trembling stone-lined path toward the wooden church. The Chinese soldiers escorted her. The Africans, with the Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, remained with the Chinook. The scene felt movie-like, as if these extras weren’t taking their roles seriously enough. Over the white picket fence, she could see the slave sculptures in the pit: the family chained together and stuck in place. Ashes settling on their heads and shoulders.

  When the ground shook again, a flock of papyrus canaries spilled upward into the darkening sky and took off for the north. These were the birds that had awoken her when she was a child, curled in the same bed as her sister; they’d imitated them and irritated their father, and he’d been so angry he’d chopped down the tree they nested in.

  Lise was swept along through the nave, to the chancel where Raymond and his workers were buried in a serpentine set-up of CPUs and rudimentary monitors; it also served as a primitive broadcasting centre. His suit still hung from his frame and the arm of his spectacles was taped with a Band-Aid.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet,” she said.

  “Solange,” Raymond said.

  Her sister emerged from behind the apse. She was wearing a boxy business jacket and very casual shorts, dressed like a news anchor for whom above-the-waist viewing was what counted. Solange nodded toward them and kept going.

  “She’s talking to Clinton,” Raymond said. “Hillary.”

  “It takes a village,” Lise said.

  Solange finished her conversation and approached them. “Allo, Lise.”

  Lise embraced her sister, and the smell of deep fear, perspiration and the essence of their mother. “I have been told that I can’t stay long. Mount Agogo—”

  “We understand,” Raymond said.

  “Let’s backtrack,” Lise said. “As you know, I asked the government of Canada to take steps to ameliorate problems here. St. Bertrand was granted debt relief, was it not?”

  “Yes,” Raymond said. “And right after Canada wiped out our debt, the IMF devalued our currency and we owed other loaner nations quadruple the amounts—staggering sums.”

  “Buggering numbers,” Solange said.

  “Beggaring. So it made no difference,” Raymond said.

  “It made it worse,” Solange said.

  The ground shook violently under them. The church swayed and rattled.

  “How about telecommunications?” Lise said. “We didn’t privatize that, right?”

  “No. You didn’t. But France did, and then Canadian telecommunications firms got a cut.”

  “A hefty cut,” Solange said.

  “The people of St. Bertrand have not seen a dollar.”

  “Or heard a ring tone.”

  Lise felt sick. It was hopeless, wasn’t it? “Okay, so what about China? I see by your soldiers you’ve managed to get them onside. And they’re no slouch.”

  “China’s stepped into the Canadian role,” Raymond said.

  “Seizing our resources and squeezing us later, Lise.”

  “Although they’ve been critical these last months,” Raymond acknowledged.

  “So we’re done here.” Lise nodded sagely. “I’ll take the message back to the Prime Minister.”

  “Have a safe trip,” he said. “I’m going to deliver the evacuation message to Jolie Ville now,” and he turned and did exactly that. “My fellow citizens,” he began, “people of Jolie Ville and neighbouring villages …”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.” Lise pulled Solange aside.

  “Odds are zero.”

  “Do you remember the day we left for Canada? I remember you packed all your Babar books in a little suitcase.”

  “You,” Solange said, “hung on to your doll for dear life.”

  Lise pulled her close and kissed her older sister’s hot forehead.

  Solange said, “C’est bien que tu aies eu un fils, Lise.”

  Robard rushed in through the narthex. “Your Excellency, come now. We have to go. It’s going to erupt. The city’s evacuating. The Black Hawks are leaving.”

  Solange squeezed her arm. “Don’t get in that helicopter.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” Lise said. “I’m not afraid of ‘detailing.’ I’ve been deeply ‘detailed’ before.”

  “I’m telling you—” Solange said. “Is Leggatt’s stepbrother on it?”

  “Yes.”

  Solange slipped something heavy and gun-like into Lise’s blazer. “Take it.”

  Lise slipped her hand around it. It was a gun. “Es-tu folle?” Then she felt the nub of Manson’s pill, and she pinched it between her fingers and pressed it into the fist of her sister. “And here’s cyanide.”

  “Ah,” Solange said, dropping it into
the interior pocket of her jacket. “Take one and don’t call me in the morning.”

  “Not for just any headache,” Lise said forcefully.

  “Eh hehn. Eh hehn.” And then Solange shoved her out the door. Lise heard it barred.

  Lise stayed imperfectly still for a second outside the church in the darkening morning. Banana trees heaved on the swaying earth; the waves of the lake were whipped into fierce oceanic whitecaps. Like volleyballs on fire in a deranged video game, bombs of magma randomly struck, one hitting a stack of used tires only a short distance away.

  Robard wildly beckoned her into the Chinook. Apoonatuk, Manson and the IMF rep were already strapped in and Manson was clearly ordering the pilot to take off.

  “Come! Come now! Come now! It’s going to explode.” Robard.

  Manson looked at her and pointed to the lake. “Lise,” he said. “Go by water.”

  “What?”

  “Get! A boat.”

  The earth undulated. Lise fought to keep her balance.

  Paul Leggatt fished for her hand. “Get the fuck on!” he said.

  “I’m staying,” Lise yelled, waving him off. “Go!”

  Lise was stunned as the Chinook miraculously started to ascend. It was immediately caught in an updraft and lifted heavenward, as if scooped by a celestial express elevator only to be given a good shake by God. Then it settled and flew northward over the lake, following the invisible path of the papyrus canaries.

  Lise waited for an explosion. And waited. Still. And then she didn’t hear the Chinook anymore.

  Three Toyota SUVs sped away up the dusty road and made the left onto the Jolie Ville highway, really a one-lane bus road to Burundi. Solange and Raymond were gone.

  Lise didn’t hesitate. In her job with ouiCare, she’d seen a lot. The Q-tip arms and wobbling craniums of malnourished infants, teenaged mothers with obstetric fistula, genital mutilation, and the impact of a banquet of diseases: Rift Valley fever, malaria, cholera and the rest. Perhaps more importantly, she’d handled herself when she’d been robbed at gunpoint at her neighbourhood Caisse Desjardins withdrawing cash on Christmas Eve fifteen years ago. Instinct had kicked in.

  Her strongest drive was to get onto the water and far away. At the dock of the Former Slave Depot, now a tourist stop, she saw the red-sailed dhow used to illustrate the mode of transportation for slave trafficking. A man threw a goat, a kid, to a woman and children on the dhow. He was in a big hurry and obviously stealing the boat and live provisions. She bolted toward them, running pell-mell down the dock.

  “Take me with you,” she said.

  The man turned. “No.” He shoved her. “Go ’way.” The woman on the dhow started yelling at her too in an indigenous dialect but it was clear she wasn’t extending any hospitality.

  Lise said, “Money. I’ll buy more goats.” She pointed at the kid.

  He ignored her, working quickly to cast off.

  “I have Visa.”

  The woman pelted her with carcasses gutted from coveted Nile perch. The perch had decimated the fish that had sustained St. Bertrand natives for centuries and was flown out to European dining tables.

  Lise pulled out the gun and shot it in the air. She’d once practised with the King’s Own Guards, the first time she’d worn the uniform. She had their complete attention.

  “I’m on the boat,” she said.

  He offered a hand. Still keeping the gun trained on him, Lise swung herself across the dhow and then stayed a safe distance from them.

  The dhow reeked of rank bodies, pee, and excrement. Les poissons. The children, with their bloated tummies, looked away from her, their hands busy stroking the kid. Lise detected shifty ideas in the eyes of the father.

  She kept her gun pointed at them. “I am the head of state of Canada. I shoot to kill. Bujumbura, now. Vite.”

  A second later, the volcano erupted.

  MOTHER MARY’S SONG TO THE “OTHER” MARY

  (with thanks to A.L. Webber and T. Rice)

  From Temptations: The Rock Opera

  You do know how to love him

  How to give, how to serve him

  He’s the boss, the biggest boss

  In these past few years, he’s grown so much

  He seems like someone else.

  You do know what to do next.

  You understand why he’s the leader.

  He’s so right. He’s very right.

  And he’s so so right, it could keep you up

  At night

  He’s right as rain and more …

  Go Praise the Lord!

  Should you build him up? (Yes)

  Should you bake and sew? (Yes)

  Should you bathe his feet? (Yes)

  Text him on the phone?

  You have to accept your female fate

  And cede your life to him.

  Girl, I hope you heed my advice

  I’m his mom so I should know

  He’s the boy who’s always been

  So smart, so sure, no thought impure

  Leading every charge (no leftist dupe)

  A man writ large.

  He’s writ so large

  (Did someone say writ?)

  He’s your boss.

  Love your boss.

  You’re just a rib.

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY GREGORY AND MARTHA LEGGATT

  22

  STAGE RIGHT.

  Becky was tremendously worried. Lise still had not arrived.

  Greg and Martha, and their well-oiled band, were performing Sodom and Gomorrah. They were the second-to-the-last surprise act; midset. Beside Becky, Peter and Pablo, tuxed and bow-tied to the max, were anxious for the curtain so they could hit up the 2010 Team Canada hockey players for autographs; the athletes were now benched until the grand finale. Peter was also obviously embarrassed by his father wearing a cool, black, tight T-shirt and control-top jeans. Children had limits.

  Martha’s voice soaked the National Arts Centre barn. She wasn’t Céline, Shania, or that new girl but she sang with moist emotion, as if she were to be guillotined at dawn with a dull blade. Mr. Yo-Yo Ma, gracing the cello, laced Lot’s wife’s ballad with a hint of despair. Watching from the opposite wing, Niko, now gone Native with a ponytail, his acne Accutaned away, swayed with requited lust. He didn’t take his eyes off Becky’s own girl, thin as a stretchy stick of chewing gum, in her short white sleeveless sheath. He gripped a conspicuous white feather.

  “Thank you,” Martha said with a bow. The applause slowly blossomed.

  A stage left skirmish. And then Lise, her commoner co-host, appeared, offering a big thumbs-up to Becky.

  Becky nodded, relieved, and sent her a very meant kiss.

  Lise had testified before the Parliamentary Committee that morning, resigned as Governor General after lunch, and moved from number 1 Sussex Drive to an undisclosed hotel. For Becky, it was a miracle that Lise was even alive, ambulatory, and on the cognitive ball. Becky wasn’t clear on the African recovery details. She’d heard not only that U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary (“It takes a Black Hawk”) Clinton, had personally controlled ops—from an aircraft carrier loitering in the Gulf of Oman—and rescued Lise in a mini-raid near Mwanza, but that King Charles vacationing in Mombasa, Kenya, had become involved and sent a Prince in a heli. Or a personal jet. Or both. And then the reliable Trenton commander, their regular pilot, had flown the Challenger at Greg’s command to deliver Lise safely home.

  So rumours had been flying, literally.

  However, the Canadian media had overlooked the rescue drama to shine significant light on Lise’s bizarre behaviour in Africa, where she’d threatened indigenous boat people at gunpoint, committed a dhow-jacking, declared herself Canadian head of state, and eaten “pet goat” meat.

  Op ed columnists queried the GG’s relationship with her bipolar sister, the Communist terrorist, and the unauthorized clinical trial conducted on innocent African children by the doctor brother-in-law, and also spared column inches to note that
Lise’s deceased first husband had had radical Cree aspirations. And there had been a leak about Eastern Europe: Romania.

  Any mention of Lise’s testimony about the possible murders of a young Mountie hero and an Afghan mother was missing.

  “Our final song on this memorable evening,” Martha said, “is called ‘Mother Mary’s Song … to the “Other” Mary.’ ”

  Was it Becky, or did that shallow titter indicate restlessness?

  Martha began. “I———”

  Greg strummed, all diligent service and rock posture.

  Before the gala, when Peter had hounded Becky about Lise’s resignation, she hadn’t known what to say. The media made it sound as if Canada was well rid of her, but Becky knew, of course, that Lise’s action had everything to do with her approbation about the deeds and direction of the current government. Daddio. She hadn’t dared say that to her son.

  But Peter had addressed the pause. “Bet she quit because she couldn’t stand Dad.”

  “What?” said Becky. “Who said that?”

  “Nobody,” Peter had said. “It just figures,” and then he’d gone back to fantasizing about the Team USA roster.

  Now Martha was yowling, “Should I bake and sew?”

  So Canada was without a Governor General and Clark the Privy Clerk was going squirrely nuts across the way in the Langevin. Forsey was being parsed and re-parsed, Becky knew. And the country, despite the censorship surrounding Lise’s resignation, and the blatant character assassination, was still smitten with her. Lise’s approval ratings were soaring on the CBC poll: stratospheric numbers for integrity and patriotism.

  Becky surmised that this was perhaps the natural disaster bump. Becky, Lise and the powerless ArtsCAN! board had agreed to donate half the gala proceeds to relief efforts in St. Bertrand. Not to be outdone in chequebook empathy, Greg had agreed that the government would pony up an undisclosed amount to a specified cap for “PMOpproved” charities. But when she checked the customarily Tory-fawning Karp-Deem and Rippo polls, during the chorus, the results were the same. Lise was off the charts!

  Suddenly, Martha couldn’t be heard. She’d had a tremulous catch in her voice and stopped singing mid-verse. Greg strummed on while the drummer gunned the beat, but Martha was zombie-stalking off the stage into Becky’s silk-gloved hands.